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FOREIGN CONSPIRACY 

AGAINST THE 

LIBERTIES 



OF 



THE UNITED STATES, 



THE NUMBERS OF 

BRUTUS, 

Originally published in the Neu--York Observer 
REVISED AND CORRECTED, WITH NOTES, BY THE AUTHOR- 

M 



Oft fire is i 


without smoke. 


fAnd peril without 


show. 


Spctxcer. 



NEW-YORK: 

PUBLISHED BY LEAVITT, LORD, & CO. 
182 Broadway. 

BOSTON — CROCKER & BREWSTER 
47 Washington-street. 



1835. 



D. Fanshaw, Primer. 



^2% 



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, Q 



Entered according toActofCongress,intheyearl835,by Leavitt, 
Lord, & Co. in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the southern 
district of the State of New-York. 



RECOMMENDATIONS. 



New- York, Jan. 1, 1835. 

T ivfessrs. Leavitt, Lord, & Co. 

Gentlemen, — Learning that you are about to publish 
in <i small volume, the articles signed Brutus, (which re- 
cently appeared in the New-York Observer, snowing that 
a conspiracy is formed against the United States by the Pa- 
pal powers of Europe,) the undersigned, who read those 
articles with interest, have great satisfaction in expressing 
their approbation of your undertaking. These articles are 
written by a gentleman of intelligence and candor, who has 
resided in the south of Europe, and enjoyed the best oppor- 
tunities for acquaintance with the topics on which he writes. 
While we disapprove of harsh, denunciatory language 
toward Roman Catholics, their past history, and the fact 
that they every where act together, as if guided by one 
mind, admonish us to be jealous of their influence, and to 
watch with unremitted care all their movements in relation 
to our free institutions. As this work is now to be published 
in a portable form, and with additional notes by the author, 
we hope it may obtain an extensive circulation and a care- 
ful perusal. Yours, with friendly regard, 

James Milnor, 
Thomas De Witt, 
N. Bangs, 
Jonathan Going. 

*** The gentlemen who have signed the above letter re- 
present four Protestant denominations, viz. the Episcopal, 
Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist. 



Extract from Zion's Herald, a Methodist paper published In Boston, Mass. ~ 

4 ; Foreign Conspiracy. — W r e commence to-day publish- 
ing this interesting series. The author is an American, who 
has resided for a long time in Italy and Austria. The same 
day that we had decided to publish them, we received a 
note, signed by Rev. Messrs. Lindsey, Fillmore, Kent, and 
Stevens, recommending and requesting that they should 
appear in the Herald." 



RECOMMENDATIONS 
Since the publication of the Tirst Edition 



The author of a little volume just published in this city, 
entitled " Foreign Conspiracy against the Liberties of the 
United States," is a gentleman personally known to us, and 
universally esteemed. We commend this volume t>* the 
serious attention of all Americans who love liberty, and 
mean to maintain it. The author undertakes to show 7 that 
a conspiracy against the liberties of this Republic is now 
in full action, under the direction of the wily Prince Met- 
ternich of Austria, who, knowing the impossibility of ob- 
literating this troublesome example of a great and free 
nation by force of arms, is attempting to accomplish his 
object through the agency of an army of Jesuits. The ar- 
ray of facts and arguments going to prove the existence of 
such a conspiracy, will astonish any man who opens the 
book with the same incredulity as we did. The author has 
traveled extensively in Europe — has resided many months, 
if not many years in Italy — and understands full well the 
kind of machinery which the politico-religious despots of 
the Old World would be likely to put in motion for the sub- 
version of our liberties. He has taken hold of the subject 
with a strong hand, and if he has not proved the existence 
of a conspiracy, he has certainly proved an immense accu- 
mulation of foreign despotic influence among us, particu- 
larly in the West, by means of priests and money sent 
here from foreign despotic countries. And he has further 
proved, that the personal influence and pecuniary aid of 
the Emperor of Austria and his principal Minister, as well 
as many of his subjects, is directed with unceasing assi- 
duity to maintain the foothold they have gained, and to 
spread the contagion of their doctrines throughout this 
fair Republic. We ask again, that if any are disposed to 
regard this subject as of little importance, they will give 
to the "Foreign Conspiracy" a serious and attentive pe- 
rusal. — iV. Y. Journal of Commerce* 

"The author, well and alike known to us as an accom- 
plished scholar and artist, has recently returned from an 



RECOMMENDATIONS. V 

European residence of several years, during which period 
he became in various ways possessed of facts and circum- 
stances inducing him to believe in the real and substantial 
existence of a conspiracy, which he has attempted to ex- 
pose. When he commenced his labors, we frankly told 
him, in repeated conversations, that we were incredulous 
of the fact he was maintaining ; but we are free to confess 
that, in the course of his labors, he has brought forward a 
mass of direct and circumstantial testimony, documentary 
and otherwise, which has left a strong impression upon our 
minds, that after all, the alarm may not have been sounded 
without cause. Events have also transpired in our own 
country, which, in connection with the suspicious move- 
ments of exotic prelates, have imparted still greater im- 
portance to the writings of Brutus." — N. Y. Commercial 
Advertiser. 

One excellence of the publication before us, almost pe- 
culiar to this writer, when compared to others who have 
written upon this subject in our country, is, that it handles 
the matter of discussion with calmness, the writer not suf- 
fering himself to indite his letters under the influence of 
exacerbated feelings, but wisely avoids those harsh and 
blackening epithets which do more to irritate the passions 
than to convince and enlighten the judgment. On this ac- 
count the book may be read with profit by all. — N. Y. 
Christian Advocate. (Methodist.) 

" We would briefly observe that the work, as it is now 
revised and corrected by the author, and illustrated by him 
with an Appendix of valuable notes, seems to be something 
almost altogether new, if not as to the substance, at least 
as respects its adventitious embellishments and illustra- 
tions. The notes of the Appendix may be truly considered 
as so many rich pearls, which set off a figure already and 
altogether prepossessing, to the best advantage. 

The author manifests the spirit of a Christian on every 
page; and although he develops a conspiracy the most 
formidable against our liberties, both civil and religious, 
not a vindictive breath ruffles the serenity of his mind. He 
steps forward, conscious of the rectitude of his motives, 
not to excite a false alarm, but coolly and deliberately to 
present facts to our view. This work, in regard to its clas- 
sical merits, is an honor to American genius. The style is 
smooth, flowing and mellifluous. It is like a garden whose 
walks are lined with flowers, where those who would imi- 
tate the industry of the bee, may find a rich profusion of 
varied sweets. 

" On reading the last chapter of this valuable work, we 



VI RECOMMENDATIONS. 

are struck with the contrast between the pacific disposi- 
tion of the author, and the ruthless spirit which character- 
izes the insidious enemy, whose machinations he exposes." 
— N. Y. Downfall of Babylbn. (Presbyterian.) 

The letters of Brutus deserve an extensive circulation. 
—Missouri, St. Louis Observer. (Presbyterian.) 

" From what I have seen and know, the fears entertained 
by the writer in the New- York Observer, under the cap- 
tion, of ' Foreign Conspiracy,' &c. are not without founda- 
tion, especially in the West." — Letter of a Traveler in the 
West. (Maryland,) Methodist Protestant. 

The author maintains, that what is called the Roman 
Catholic Religion is in reality a political despotism, dis- 
guised under a religious name. We think he proves it; 
and also that the leading enemies of free institutions in 
Europe are engaged in organized efforts to give that des- 
potism prevalence in the United States. The author has 
not given his name ; but it may not be amiss to state that 
he has been intimately acquainted with Popery in Europe. 

We do not believe that the progress of Popery in this 
country can be checked effectually in any way but by the 
conversion of its votaries. The Gospel must be preach- 
ed to the Catholic emigrant, and by its influence he must 
be brought to repent and believe. And it seems evident to 
us, that the political argument is, from its very nature, in- 
capable of exciting men to the effort by which this can be 
accomplished. Preaching the Gospel from political consid- 
erations will not convert men. We think that writers on 
Popery have been too unmindful of*this truth. Yet the 
political argument, like all truth, has it value, and ought 
not to be neglected. In this work it is admirably present- 
ed. We hope it will be widely circulated and attentively 
read. — Massachusetts, Boston Recorder. (Congregational!) 

lt Brutus has published his * Conspiracy,' &c. in a small 
volume, accompanied with notes. They are elaborate and 
eloquent articles. I hope it will be scattered over the 
whole country. He is a distinguished scholar and artist of 
this city, and has his information from pergonal observa- 
tion, while in Europe a few years since." — Letter to the Ed- 
itor of the Mass. Ziorfs Herald. (Methodist.) 

The numbers of Brutus. — a Our readers are already ac- 
quainted with their contents. The object is to awaken the 
attention of the American public to a design, supposed to 
b© entertained by the despotic governments of Europe, 



RECOMMENDATIONS. V.U 

particularly of Austria, in conjunction with his Holiness 
the Pope, to undermine gradually our free institutions by 
the promotion of the Catholic Religion in America. The 
letters are interesting, from the numerous facts which they 
disclose ; and are deserving the careful attention of the 
citizens of these United States, who should guard with vi- 
gilance the sacred trust which has been confided to us by 
our fathers."— -N. Y. Weekly Messenger, 

" Brutus. — The able pieces over this signature, relative 
to the designs of Catholicity in our highly favored land, 
originally published in the New- York Observer, it is now 
ascertained were written, not by an individual who was 
barely indulging in conjectures, but by one who has wit- 
nessed the Papacy in all its deformity. One who has, not 
long since, traveled extensively in the Romish countries, 
and has spent much time in the Italian States, where the 
seat of the Beast is. Rome is familiar to him, and he has 
watched the movements there with great particularity. 
We may, therefore, yield a good degree of credence to 
what Brutus has told us. His numbers are now published 
in a pamphlet, and the fact which has just come out in re- 
gard to his peculiar qualification to write on this great 
subject, will give them extensive circulation." — Utica Bap- 
tist Register. 

The work embodies a mass of facts, collected from au- 
thentic sources, of the deepest interest to every friend of 
civil liberty and Protestant Christianity. The efforts of 
despotic European sovereigns, to inoculate our country 
with the religion of Rome, are fully proved. Could they 
succeed in these efforts, and annihilate the spirit of liberty 
on our shores, the march of free principles in our own do- 
minions would cease. They could then sit securely on 
their thrones, and rule with a rod of iron over their abject 
vassals. — Ohio, Cincinnati Journal. (Presbyterian.) 



CONTENTS 



Prefatory Remarks Page 15 

Chapter I 19 

The first impressions of the improbability of a Foreign 
conspiracy considered — Present political condition of 
Europe favors an enterprise against our institutions — 
the war of opinions commenced ; Despotism against 
liberty — The vicissitudes of this war — Official declara- 
tions of the despotic party against all liberty — Neces- 
sity to the triumph of Despotism that American liberty 
should be destroyed— The kind of attack most likely 
to be adopted from the nature of the contest — Reasons 
why our institutions are obnoxious to European Go- 
vernments — Has the attack commenced ? Yes ! by Aus- 
tria—Through a Society called the St. Leopold Foun- 
dation — Ostensibly religious in its design. 

Chapter II 37 

Political character of the Austrian government — The old 
avowed enemy of Protestant liberty — Character of the 
people of Austria, slaves — Character of Prince Metter- 
nich, the arch contriver of plans to stifle liberty— 
These enemies of all liberty suddenly anxious for the 
civil and religious liberty of the United States — The 
absurdity of their ostensible design exposed— The 
avowed objects of Austria in the Leopold Foundation 
— Popery the instrument to act upon our institutions. 

Chapter III 47 

Popery in its political not its religious character the ob- 
ject of the present examination — The fitness of the in- 
strument to accomplish the politicai designs of des- 
potism — The principles of a Despotic and a Free go- 
vernment briefly contrasted — Despotic principles fun- 
damental in Popery— Infallible testimony addnced— 
Papal claims of divine right and plenitude of power— 
Abject principles of Popery illustrated from the Rus- 
sian Catechism— Protestantism from its birth in favor 
of liberty— Luther on the 4th of July attacks the pre- 



X CONTENTS. 

sumptuous claim of Divine right—Despotism and Po- 
pery united against liberty of conscience, liberty of 
opinion, and liberty of the press— The anti-republican 
declarations of the present Pope Gregory XVI. 

Chapter IV . , . 53 

The cause of Popery and Despotism identical— A striking 
difference between Popery and Protestantism as they 
exist in this country— American Protestantism not 
controlled by foreign Protestantism— American Popery 
entirely under foreign control— Jesuits, the foreign 
agents of Austria, bound by the strongest ties of inter- 
est to Austrian policy, not American— Their dangerous 
power, unparalleled in any Protestant sect— Our free 
institutions opposed in their nature to the arbitrary 
claims of Popery—Duplicity to be expected— Political 
dangers to be apprehended from Popish organization 
—American Popery uncontrolled by Americans, or in 
America— Managed in a foreign country by a foreign 
power for political purposes— Consequences that may 
easily result from such a state of things. 

Chapter V .59 

Points in our political system which favor this foreign 
attack— Our toleration of all religious systems— Popery 
opposed to all toleration— Charge of intolerance sub- 
stantiated—The organization of Popery in America 
connected with and strengthened foreignorganization 
—Without a parallel among Protestant sects— Great 
preponderance of Popish strength in consequence— 
The divisions among Protestant sects nullifies their at- 
tempts at combination— Taken advantage of by Jesuits 
—Popish duplicity illustrated in its opposite alliances 
in Europe with despotism, and in America with de- 
mocracy—The laws relating to immigration and natu- 
ralization favor foreign attack— Emigrants being most- 
ly Catholic and in entire subjection to their priests- 
No remedy provided by our laws for this alarming 
evil. 

Chapter VI 69 

t The evil from immigration further considered— Its po- 
litical bearings— The influence of emigrants at the 
elections— This influence concentrated in the priests— 
The priests must be propitiated; by what means— This 
influence easily purchased by the demagogue— The 
unprincipled character of many of our politicians fa- 
vor this foreign attack— Their bargain for the suffrages 
of this priest-led band— A church and state party— The 
Protestant sects obnoxious to no such bargaining— the 
newspaper press favors this foreign attack from its 



CONTENTS. XI 

want of independence and its timidity— An anti-repub- 
lican fondness for titles, favors this foreign attack- 
Cautious attempts of Popery to dignify its emissaries 
and to accustom us to their high-sounding titles— A 
mistaken notion on the subject of discussing religious 
opinion in the secular journals, favors this foreign at- 
tack—Political designs not to be shielded from attack 
because cloked by Religion. 

Chapter VII 87 

The political character of this ostensibly religious enter- 
prise proved from the letters of the Jesuits now in this 
country— Their antipathy to private judgment— Their 
anticipations of a change in our form of government— 
Our government declared too free for the exeercise of 
their divine rights— Their political partialities— Their 
cold acknowledgement of the generosity, and librality, 
and, hospitality of our government— their estimate of 
our condition contrasted with their estimate of that of 
Austria— Their acknowledged allegience and servility 
to a foreign master— Their sympathies with the. op- 
pressor and not with the oppressed— Their direct 
avowal of political design. 

Chapter VIII 91 

Some of the means by which Jesuits can already operate 
politically in the country— By mob discipline— By priest 
police— Its great danger— Already established— Proofs 
—Priests already rule the mob— Nothing in the prin 
ciples of Popery to prevent its interference in our 
elections— Popery interferes at the present day in the 
political concerns of other countries— Popery the same 
in our country— It interferes in our elections — In Mi- 
chigan—In Chareston, S. C In New- York— Popery a 

political despotism cloked under the name of Religion 
—It is Church and State embodied— Its character at 
head quarters in Italy— Its political character stripped 
of its religious cloke. 

Chapter IX 103 

Evidence enough of conspiracy adduced to create great 
alarm— The cause of liberty universally demands that 
we should awake to a sense of danger— An attack is 
made which is to try the moral strength of the Re- 
public—The mode of defence that might be consist- 
ently recommended by Austrian Popery — A mode now 
in actual operation in Europe— Contrary to the entire 
spirit of American Protestantism— True mode of de- 
fence— Popery must be opposed by antagonist institu- 
tions—Ignorance must be dispelled— Popular ignorance 
of all Papal countries— Popery the natural enemy of 



XU CONTENTS. 

general education— Popish efforts to spread education 
in the United States delusive. 

Chapter X ........ 113 

All classes of citizens interested in reisting the efforts 
of Popery— The unnatural alliance of Popery and De- 
mocracy exposed— Religious liberty in danger— Spe- 
cially in the keeping of the Christian community— 
They must rally for its defence— The secular press has 
no sympathy with Protestants ; in this struggle it is 
opposed to them— The Political character of Popery 
ever to be kept in mind and opposed— It is for the Pa- 
pist not the Protestant to separate his religious from 
his political creed— Papists ought to be required pub- 
licly and formally and officially to renounce foreign al- 
legience and anti-republican customs. 

Chapter XI 123 

The question what is the duty of the Protestant commu- 
nity ? considered— Shall there be an'Anti-Popery Union? 
—The strong manifesto that might be put forth by 
such a union— Such a political union discarded as im- 
politic and degrading to the Protestant community— 
Golden opportunity for showing the moral energy of 
the republic— The lawful and efficient weapons of this 
contest— To be used without delay. 

Chapter XII 135 

The Political duty of American citizens at this crisis, 



FOREIGN CONSPIRACY 

AGAINST THE 

LIBERTIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
BY BRUTUS. 

Preface to the Second Edition. 

The great and increasing attention to the subject, of 
which these chapters treat, has given them an extensive 
circulation. **A large edition with notes has been rapidly 
sold, and two editions of the numbers, as they originally 
appeared in the New-York Observer, have been printed in 
the Valley of the Mississippi, at the expense of patriotic 
Associations, and distributed throughout the western coun- 
try. A larger and cheaper edition is now demanded, for 
general distribution, by numerous citizens belonging to va- 
rious religious and opposite political sects. 

The author has watched with more than ordinary solici- 
tude the movements throughout the country, in relation to 
this exciting subject, and has anxiously hoped that facts 
would transpire which should prove that the charge of 
Conspiracy against the Liberties of the United States, con- 
ducted by the agents and funds of foreign powers, was 
groundless. Gladly would he make any personal sacrifice 
of feeling, and endure the stigma of being accounted a 
visionary or an alarmist, if satisfactory counter-testimony 
could be adduced that might safely allay the fears that 
have been generally excited, and which every one must 
allow are at least plausibly grounded. On the contrary, 
he is compelled to say, that the course of events, and fur- 
ther investigation have brought full confirmation to the 
truth of the charge. 

No one who has turned his attention to the subject can 
fail to have observed that the Roman Catholic journals 



XIV . PREFACE, 

preserve a rigid silence on the subject of the Austrian St* 
Leopold Foundation, and the alleged conspiracy against 
our civil institutions through the instrumentality of the Ca- 
tholic religion. Would an accusation that was ground- 
less, so seriously implicating any Protestant sect with fo- 
reign political movements, be suffered to agitate the whole 
country for five or six months, without producing from the 
sect thus accused a prompt and satisfactory explanation ? 
No publication of the Roman Catholics attempting to re- 
fute the charge has, to the author's knowledge, been put 
forth, nor has there been (with a single exception, which 
I shall presently examine,) any disclaimer of principles 
hostile to our free institutions. Silence, it would seem, 
has been the word of command on this subject, from 
head-quarters ; and from Maine to Louisiana, throughout 
the Roman Catholic ranks, with that perfectness of dis- 
cipline for which this despotic sect is famous, the word of 
command is strictly obeyed. Neither in the daily political 
journals under their influence (and there are many that 
are evidently in their interest) has there appeared any 
thing in the way of refutation of the charge of conspira- 
cy, except a sneer at its improbability, or a gratuitous im> 
putation of bigotry and intolerance, against the writer. 

Many who think, with the author, that there is imminent 
danger to our free institutions from the increase of foreign 
Catholics, and from their despotic organization through- 
out these States, are yet unwilling to believe that Austria 
and other foreign despotic powers can have any settled 
design to subvert, through the instrumentality of the Ca- 
tholic religion, the Democratic institutions of the country. 
Had any thing more than mere dissent on this charge' been 
hazarded, the author could better strengthen any assailed 
point. He is not aware of any weak spot in the chain of 
argument, or in the evidence by which he sustains his own 
belief, and he therefore must have recourse to conjecture 
for possible objections to its general credence. 



PREFACE. XV 

What concurrence of circumstances, aside from con* 
fession of the plot, is sufficient to prove conspiracy ? 

Is not the case proved if it can be shown, 

1st. That there exists an adequate motive to conspire ? 

2d. That there exists ample means wherewith to con- 
spire ? 

And 3d. That means capable of accomplishing the object 
of conspiracy are actually employed by those whose interest it 
is to conspire ? 

No one in the case before us can expect a confession 
from the conspirators ; let us have recourse then to the 
last proposed. 

1. Have Austria and the Holy Alliance an adequate motive 
for conspiring against the liberties of the United States ? 
Can there be a stronger motive than that of self preserva- 
tion ? So certain as this country exists in prosperity un- 
der its present democratic form of government, just so 
certain will its example operate on the people of Europe, 
as it has for two centuries operated, and is now in an ac- 
celerated degree!operating, to subvert the ancient^oppres- 
sive systems of government of the old world. The strong- 
est motive, therefore, that can influence governments as 
well as individuals, that of self preservation, impels Aus- 
tria and the other despots of Europe to seek, by any means 
in their power, the subversion of this government. 

2. Have they the means to conspire ? No one can doubt 
that the usual means of conspiracy, money, and intriguing 
agents, are perfectly at the command of those governments 
who can lavish their millions for the sole purpose of pro- 
tecting their thrones, who keep in their pay for this vital 
object, standing armies, and a police of tens of thousands 
of spies. 

3. Have they then employed, or are they actually em- 
ploying means capable of accomplishing their object in this 
country? Austria, in a combination with other pow- 
ers, called the St. Leopold foundation, has sent, and 
is still sending both money and agents to this country ; the 



XVI PREFACE. 

former comes in the shape of religious contributions to this 
St. Leopold foundation, the Society in Vienna, establish- 
ed with express reference to operations in the United States ; 
the latter come from the same quarter, in the shape of hun- 
dreds of Jesuits and priests • a class of men notorious for 
their intrigue and political arts, and who have a complete 
military organization through the United States. The Ca- 
tholic religion is the cloak which covers the design. 

All the circumstances therefore necessary to prove con- 
spiracy, concur in fixing this charge upon Austria, and her 
associates in that Union of Christian Princes, combined in 
the St. Leopold Foundation. Is there any defect in the test 
I have applied, or in its application ? Will it be said, that 
by this rule the United States can be proved to have poli- 
tically conspired against India ; because Protestant Ameri- 
can Missionaries have been sent to India, to convert the 
people to Christianity. Let us apply the test and see if con- 
spiracy can be proved. Aside from the fact that the United 
States as a government cannot, as do other governments, 
engage in a religious enterprize, the peculiarity in its 
principles of the separation of Church and State, making it 
unconstitutional, and therefore impossible, I ask what ade- 
quate 7notive exists here for such a crusade ? what have the 
United States to fear politically from India ? It is scarcely 
necessary to answer, nothing. The proof fails, therefore, 
in the first rule, in regard to conspiracy by the United 
States. 

But some may say, although we can easily perceive that 
the Austrian system and our own are diametrically op- 
posed, and that it may be, therefore, in a general sense, 
for the interest of Austria to extinguish the liberties of this 
country, yet where is your proof that she has ever so far 
interested herself in the political character of this coun- 
try, or considered the example of this government in so 
alarming a light, as to make it a serious object to destroy 
its influence on Europe ? Can you prove that she has 
ever considered American institutions so dangerous to the 
existence of her own, as to authorize you to use so strong 



PREFACE. XVII 

terms as self-preservation, in relation to the degree of in- 
terest she ha3 in the event expected, and conspiracy in 
relation to measures she is using, in this country ? These 
are important points, and I will examine them. As to the 
use of the term self-preservation, it might be a sufficient 
justification to refer generally to the Austrian policy, in re- 
gard to all countries, over, and in which she can exercise 
any control. Her interference in Saxony,*(see page 48,) 
to control the press, on the principle of self-preservation, 
is a case in point ; but her interference at this moment to 
resist the progress of democratic opinions in Switzerland 
on the same principle, fully proves that she is sensibly 
alive to every movement in the political world which tends 
in the slightest degree to weaken the structure of her ar- 
bitrary system. 

As to the other term conspiracy, if any still think it too 
strong in relation to the operations of Austria in this coun- 
try, I trust their opinion will be changed by considering 
the following facts : 

In the year 1828, the celebrated Frederick Schlegel, 
one of the most distinguished literary men of Europe, de- 
livered lectures at Vienna on the Philosophy of History, 
(which have not been translated into English,) a great ob- 
ject of which is to show the mutual support which Popery 
and Monarcfa/^derive from each other. He commends the 
two systems in connection as deserving of universal recep- 
tion. He attempts to prove that sciences, and arts, and all 
the pursuits of man as an intellectual being, are best pro- 
moted under this perfect system of church and state ; a 
Pope at the head of the former ; an Emperor at the head 
of the latter. He contrasts with this, the system of Pro- 
testantism ; represents Protestantism as the enemy of good 
government, as the ally of Republicanism, as the parent of 
the distresses of Europe, as the cause of all the disorders 
with which legitimate governments are afflicted. In the 
close of lecture 17th, vol. ii. p. 286, he thus speaks of this 
country : The true nursery efall these destructive princU 



XV1U PREFACE. 

pies ; the revolutionary school for France and the rest of 
Europe has been North America. Thence the evil has spread 
over many other lands, either by natural contagion or by arbi- 
trary communication." 

Let it be remembered that it was in Vienna, in 1828, 
where opinions so flattering to the pride of legitimacy 
were publicly preached by one of the first scholars of the 
age, where the United States was held up to the execra- 
tion of his Austrian auditors as the " nursery of destructive 
principles" as the " revolutionary school for Europe" as, in 
truth, the great central fire which threatened the rest of 
the world, and which must be put out, ere Europeango- 
vernments could rest in safety. Let it then also be borne 
in mind that it was in Vienna, in 1829, immediately after 
these opinions were promulgated, while the influence of 
Sch'egeFs eloquent appeals was still fresh, that the St. Leo- 
pold Foundation was set on ,foot for the purpose fto use 
the language of its own reports] "of promoting the greater 
activity of Catholic missions in the United States. 11 

Here then we have doctrines advanced in Austria, that 
Monarchy and Popery mutually sustain each other, that 
Republicanism and Protestantism also mutually sustain 
each other, and that the great nursery of this hated Repub- 
licanism is these United States ; and immediately conse- 
quent on the promulgation of these opinions, a great So- 
ciety is formed, with the Emperor of Austria for its patron, 
the counsellor of State, Prince Metternich, its grand mana- 
ger, and all the officers of State the zealous promoters of 
the design, and engaged in the instant vigorous diffusion 
of Popery in this country. Now what is the intention of 
Austria in spreading in this country Popery, the natural 
ally of Monarchical government? With the facts of the 
case before them, the people will not be slow in forming 
their judgment of the nature of this ostensibly religious 
enterprize, and whether the term conspiracy is too strong 
to apply to this insidious attempt. 

But who, after all, is Frederick Schlegel ? He may be a 



PREFACE. XIX 

great scholar, but what is his situation that so much weight 
is to be attached to his opinions ? I will give my readers a 
brief account of him, abridged from the Encyclopedia 
Americana, (edited by a German,) sufficient to enable 
them to judge if too much stress is laid upon his opinions. 
"Frederick Schlegel, (one of the great literary stars of 
Germany) went over to the Catholic faith, at Col@gne, and 
in the year 1800 repaired to Vienna. In 1809 he received 
an appointment at the head quarters of the Arch Duke 
Charles, where he drew up several powerful proclamations. 
When peace was concluded he again delivered lectures in 
Vienna on modern history and the literature of all nations. 
In 1812 he published the German Museum, and gained the 
confidence of Prince Metternich by various diplomatic pa- 
pers, in consequence of which he was appointed Austrian coun- 
sellor of legation at the diet in Frankfort. In 1818 he re- 
turned to Vienna, where he lived as Secretary of the 
Court and Counsellor of Legation, and published a 
view of the Present Political relations [of Austrial and his 
complete works." In 1828 he delivered his lectures on the 
Philosophy of History, in which his views as I have stated 
them are fully developed. 

This is the man whose opinions on the relation of Popery 
and Monarchy, and of Protestantism and Republicanism, 
and of the influence of the United States, have been fol- 
lowed by the action of the Austrians, in the formation of 
the St. Leopold Foundation. .He was part and parcel of the 
government, he was one of the Austrian Cabinet, the 

CONFIDENTIAL COUNSELLOR OF PRINCE MeTTERNICH ! 

Let me now examine matters nearer home. How far are 
the Roman Catholics [of this country to be considered as 
implicated in this Conspiracy ? This is indeed a grave ques- 
tion, and one which demands serious attention, lest we 
should be, on the one hand, too regardless of danger from 
them, and on the other, unjust to those who are innocent. 
We are told that they disclaim hostility to our free govern- 
ment, that they profess the warmest friendship to our de- 



XX PREFACE. 

mocratic institutions. I readily concede that there has 
been, and are now, many true patriots among this sect, 
many estimable men of sound political views, sincere in 
supporting the democratic institutions of the country, but 
making the most ample allowance, they are but excep- 
tions to the rule. The sect, as a sect, is still justly charge- 
able with the tendency of its acknowledged principles. If 
a Roman Catholic in the United States is a Democratic Re- 
publican, he is so in spite of, and in opposition to, the system 
of his church, and not in accordance with it. To the truth of 
this fact the arguments of Schlegel, a Catholic, and the pro- 
foundest investigator of the subject in the present age, are 
unanswerably conclusive. From their principles of passive 
obedience, and denial of the right of private judgment alone, 
Roman Catholics, as a sect, must be ignorant and willing 
slaves to the schemes of any despotic ecclesiastic that a 
foreign power may see fit to send to this country to rule 
over them. The secret plans, the real designs of the Jesuits 
may be confined to few bosoms, it is by no means neces- 
sary that the mass of the sect should have any knowledge 
of the plot ; for from the nature of their system they may 
be blind instruments of the few. 

Popery and despotism are notoriously united in the Aus- 
trian government, and Protestantism and Republicanism 
in that of the United States. At the time I adduced ar- 
guments to prove the truth of these two categories, I was 
wholly unapprized that so distinguished a political writer 
as Schlegel had taken the same views of these opposite 
systems, to rouse Austrians to the defence of their own 
category. A powerful argument is derived from this corro- 
boration of an important political truth, by Schlegel, who 
writes in the interest of absolutism, to urge all true friends 
of liberty on this side of the water, to the vigorous mainte- 
nance of the American category. It is a truth now no 
longer to be questioned, that Popery is so naturally the 
ally of Absolute government, that the diffusion of the for- 
mer will result in producing the latter, and it is equally 



PREFACE. XXI 

true that the diffusion of Protestantism will result in the 
production of liberal institutions. What, then, is the duty 
of Americans, all who really love their own free system 
of government ? There can be but one answer. They 
must unite in giving every facility to the spread of Protes- 
tant principles. Patriotism demands that every Protestant 
religious sect be encouraged to promote its own views, 
each according to the dictates of conscience ; and patri- 
otism equally demands the discouragement, in every law- 
ful way, of the further introduction of Popery and Popish 
influence into the country. Popery is the antagonist to our 
free system. No one can doubt that the unusual efforts of 
despotic foreign governments to spread Popery in the Unit- 
ed States, has for its principle design the subversion of 
our republican institutions. Ought a vaunted but spurious 
charity to be allowed to blind the eyes of Americans to the 
evidence of the attack made upon them ? ought they to 
aid these foreign conspirators, by adding their owm con- 
tributions to the means of spreading Popery ? ought they 
to encourage the schools of Jesuit agents ; their immoral 
nunnery systems ; their slave-making seminaries, by plac- 
ing American children within the pale of their discipline ? 
ought they to court Jesuit influence in our politics, and 
screen their political principles from examination, on the 
plea that this is merely a religious controversy? Let pa- 
triotism answer these questions. 

I will now examine the disclaimer of hostility to our re- 
publican institutions, (to which I have alluded,) made in 
behalf of the Catholics in this country, by a Catholic jour- 
nal. As a Unitarian paper in Boston has quoted it with 
satisfaction, I give it here, with the Unitarian editor's re- 
marks prefixed : 

CATHOLIC DISCLAIMER. 

We have no doubt that the Roman Catholics 
have their due share of proselyting spirit. Some 



XXU PREFACE. 

of our good people, clergy and laity, would have 
a poor opinion of their sincerity if they were des- 
titute of that spirit. But the cry is — " Conspiracy 
against the Liberties of the United States." Let 
the following confession of political faith pass for 
what it is worth. There is nothing in it which 
sounds like what we call by the odious epithet 
Jesuitical ; and we do not ourselves question the 
sincerity of the avowal with which it closes ; an 
avowal similar to one which Catholics in England 
have made on like occasions. — Christian Regis- 
ier. 

" It was the duty of the Catholic Church to perform 
the funeral offices for the latest representative (Car- 
roll) of those who signed the charter of our liberties, 
and struggled to raise them, on their present basis of 
equal rights for all. The same republican opinions 
wjiich he held, the Catholics of this country now 
hold. They deem the constitution as sacred, and the 
laws as obligatory in the spirit and in the letter as any 
portion of this public ; and were an effort now made 
to consolidate religious with national government, 
though they should be the ruling party, as Ameri- 
cans, as freemen,, they would be found first in the 
ranks to oppose such an alliance. 35 — Catholic [Cin- 
cinnati] Telegraph. 

This is the disclaimer , the only one I have yet seen, and 
which seems so far satisfactory to the Editor of the Regis- 
ter, that he sees pothing in it which " sounds Jesuitical." 
To me, Jesuitism was never more evident. It is permitted 
to scrutinize with more than common care, a Jesuit docu- 
ment ; but in the present case there needs no scrutiny. 
The trick, is so on the surface, that I am surprised at the 



preface;. xxus 

blindness of any one who professes not to see it. " The 
same republican opinions which he (Carroll) held, the Ca- 
tholics of this country now hold," and " were an effort 
now made to consolidate religious with national govern- 
ment," &c. What is there in this disclaimer which could be 
brought in proof of breach of faith, or even of inconsis- 
tency, if to-morrow, or at any future period, the Roman Ca* 
tholics should think it politic to hold, that " a system of go- 
vernment" (like the United States) " may be very fine in 
theory ;\veryfitfor imitation on the part of those who seek the 
power of the mob, in contradistinction tojustiee and the public 
interest ; but it is not of a nature to invite the reflecting part of 
the world, and shows at least that it has evils ? " It was, po- 
litic be it remarked, but yesterday, (before this subject had 
created so much excitement,) for this same Catholic Tele- 
graph to hold this identical anti-republican, anti-American 
language, with the addition of his opinion, that " the system 
of American Institutions were condemned by numerous other 
proofs. 11 To-day, however, the Catholic leaders find it po- 
litic to play republican ; because the people are waking to 
a sense of danger to their liberties, and the artifices of 
the Jesuits through the land are no longer regarded with 
indifference. 

A disclaimer on the part of the Roman Catholics, of 
hostility to republican institutions, is a matter of too se- 
rious importance, just now, to be left to be inferred from 
ambiguous expressions ; it must come in a more formal 
and responsible shape, than that of a paragraph in a jour- 
nal, of such contradictory views. A disclaimer of anti- 
republican principles, of principles in direct and dange- 
rous opposition to those of this government, with which the 
Papal system is directly and distinctly charged, must be a 
frank unambiguous manifesto, that will bear scrutiny, is- 
suing from an authority unquestioned. It must embrace 
a disclaimer of foreign allegiance, of hostility to freedom 
of the press, to liberty of opinion, to liberty of conscience. 
It must contain satisfactory evidence that these anii-Ame* 



XXIV PREFACE. 

rican principles are expunged, and expunged for ever, from 
the Roman Catholic system. These are some of the essen- 
tial points to be met, and they must be met without evasion. 
And until this is done, the people of this country are fairly 
borne out in regarding Roman Catholics essentially and 
necessarily, enemies to her free government, and most es- 
pecially to the democratic republican institutions of this 
country ; nor will they be blinded to this truth by the re- 
presentation industriously pressed upon them, that the 
Catholic population of this country, are novo, (whether 
truly, or feignedly, it matters not,) in favor of republican 
institutions, or that the foreigners among them, are novo 
heard more vociferous than native citizens, in their huz- 
zas, on all patriotic occasions, and in praises of civil and 
religious liberty. 

The course of many of our daily journals, on this subject, 
is one demanding severe reprehension from the American 
people. They are conspicuously busy in making the im- 
pression, that the excitement now general through the 
country respecting Popery, is the result of a sudden dispo- 
sition to persecute the Catholics, that it is a sectarian and 
proscriptive war upon them, the fruits of an intolerant, bi- 
goted, fanatical spirit, and the revival of ancient preju- 
dices. These are accusations daily reiterated. We have 
fallen on strange times, indeed, when subjects of the 
deepest political importance to the country may not be 
mooted in the political journals of the day without meet- 
ing the indiscriminating hostility and denunciations of 
such journals ; without hints and even threats of popular 
vengeance, unless we abstain from discussing exciting 
subjects ; as if all great questions touching our liberties 
could be otherwise than exciting. One, would have all de- 
bating societies suppressed, even by mobs. Others liberally 
charge illiberality, bigotry, and intolerance on all who ven- 
ture publicly to write against Popery, and little conscious 
of their own sins of the same character, are bigoted against 
bigotry, and intolerant against intolerance. Denunciations 



ill 



PREFACE. XXV 

like these, be it remarked, are made against any and all 
Protestant sects, while Popery claims with them an exclu- 
sive privilege of exemption from attack. Protestant Ame- 
rican Christianity all over the land may be gratuitously 
charged with the local sins of an irreligious, intemperate 
mob, as at Charlestown ; v American citizens may be sub- 
jected to the grossest indignity by Roman Catholics for not 
conforming to Popish customs, as at Cincinnati ; they may 
be threatened with the vengeance of a band of foreigners, as 
by the Superior of the Ursuline convent ; they may be dis- **- 
turbed at religious meetings, and forcibly driven into the 
streets by Roman Catholic rioters, as in New- York ; or 
prevented from peaceably assembling to discuss the poli- 
tical question of Popery, by threats of outrage, as at Phi 
ladelphia ; and in these cases where are the sympathies of 
the press ? Does it raise the cry of illiberality, and intole- 
rance, and persecution, and bigotry against the Roman 
Catholic aggressors ; does it defend the sacred right of 
freedom of discussion thus alarmingly invaded. No ! its 
terms of reproach are exclusively reserved for those who 
venture to publish these acts. These are epithets suited on- 
ly to those Protestants who have the hardihood to maintain 
that American necks are not yet prepared to wear the Po- 
lish yoke, the despotic chain offered by Austria, and com- 
mended to them by the royal devotees of " the blessed St. 
Leopold.' But say some, this is a religious controversy, 
and it is wrong to discuss it in the daily journals. Is Po- 
pery a religious controversy ? Let us see. The St. Leopold 
Foundation is asserted to be a political combination of fo- \ j ' 
reign powers, founded with a view to the overthrow of our 
republican government. If despotism approaches us in 
the garb of religion is it the less to be resisted ? Have 
we no political interest in the truth or falsity of this fact ? 
Is this a religious or a political question ? The agents of 
this society are asserted to be political agents sent to this 
country in the disguise of religious missionaries. Is this a 
religious or a political question ? The present Pope asserts 

C* 



XXVI PREFACE. 

his claim to temporal, as well as spiritual jurisdiction over 
\ his subjects, this jurisdiction he now exercises in other 
countries. Are not the Catholics of this country the sub- 
jectsof the Pope ; do they not owe him an allegiance supe- 
rior to any due to our laws ? and is this a religious or a poli- 
tical question? Schools are establishing in all parts of the 
country, colleges, convents, and seminaries, by means of 
Austrian money in the hands of Jesuits. In these schools 
a system of education is devised altogether different from 
our own school system. What is the nature of this foreign 
system ? Is it favorable or adverse to liberty ? And are 
these religious or political questions ? Foreign emigrants are 
flocking to our shores in increased numbers, two-thirds at 
least are Roman Catholics, and of the most ignorant clas- 
ses, and thus pauperism and crime are alarmingly increas- 
ed. The Irish Catholics in an especial manner clan toge- 
ther, keep themselves distinct from the American family, 
exercise the political privileges granted to them by our hos- 
pitality not as Americans, but as Irishmen, keep alive their 
foreign feelings, their foreign associations, habits and man- 
ners. Is this mixture and these doings favorable or unfa- 
vorable to American character, and national independ- 
ence ? and is this a religious or a political question ? It 
would be easy to add to this list of questions purely polili- 
cal, which are involved in the mixed system of Popery ; and 
are editors who cry out against the Popish controversy so 
ill-informed of the character of this Church and State sect, 
that they are unable to distinguish the political from the 
religious questions ? Has Popery so cloaked itself in sa- 
credness, has this political engine of foreign despotism so 
sanctified its very name, that our press is awe-struck at 
its movements, and cries sacrilege if its political claims to 
our reception be in the slightest degree disputed ? Whence 
come all the sorrows and regrets about controversy and la- 
mentations, and whinings about intolerance because free- 
men are jealous of the meddling of foreigners in our con- 
cerns? Is this discussion of the political principles of Popery 



PRE7ACE. XXVH 

really ill-timed and gratuitous 7 Who has provoked it 1 
What ! shall foreign powers combine together, secretly, 
and openly send their money, and their agents, to spread 
a great political and religious system over the country ; 
a system notorious for enslaving, impoverishing, and 
degrading the people ; shall they build their k means of at- 
tack within our borders, and American freemen be re- 
buked into silence, when they venture to examine the 
character of this foreign enterprize, and to question the 
purely benevolent nature of their imperial majesties 
love forour souls 1 It is a subject of deep interest in- 
deed, to the community, to know how far our press is 
inoculated with this no controversy spirit ; this truly pa- 
pal spirit ; this emphatically anti- American spirit. How 
is it that our free principles of government have been 
brought out, and setjbefore the world, but by free, unem- 
barrassed discussion 5 by controversy, by sharp contro- 
cersy, by the collision of intellect with intellect. It is 
in the skilful conflict of mind with mind, that truth is 
elicited ; it is by the friction of keen debate that the rust 
of error is kept from gathering over, and corroding 
away vital truths. Better, far better, occasionally to 
endure even the excesses of the storm, so necessary to 
scatter the noxious vapors of the atmosphere, than to 
purchase a fatal repose by dwelling in the quiet but 
pestilential atmosphere of a tomb. 

Is it the spirit of liberty, or of despotism that now 
frowns upon free inquiry, that would shut out debate 
from the secular press, by the deceptive cry of religious 
controversy % Who are they that are dreading, and 
shrinking from examination 1 Who that caution all 
those over whom they have power, " against attending 
upon, or taking part in, or noticing meetings," for the 
discussion of the political question of Popery 1 Ah ! is 
this the tender point 1 Is it when the political question is 
proposed for public debate, that Popish Bishops first take 
he alarm, r and the spiritual jurisdiction is paraded forth. 



XXV111 PREFACE. 



and the spiritual power exercised, to prevent their subjects 
from exercising their political privileges 1* May the 
religious question (that alone with which Bishops have 
any thing to do) be freely debated, without their inter- 
ference. And is it only when the political question is 
started, with which as Bishops they have nothing to do, 
that they fulminate their spiritual thunders against those 
who agitate the subject? And is it in such intermeddling 
with politics, that they are upheld by the Protestant 
press % Is our press indeed in awe of Popish bishops ? 
Does it fear to touch the civil character of Popery for 
fear of giving offence to Popish bishops 1 Truth has 
nothing to fear from the severest scrutiny. It is error 
that loves mystery ; that seeks concealment ; that shrouds 
itself in secresy, and cries out persecution ! Yes, perse- 
cution, forsooth, if any one attempts to drag it into the 
light. It was error that the poet aptly describes as 



seeing one in mail, 



Armed to point, sought back to turn again ; 

For light she hated as the deadly bale, 

Aye, wont in desert darkness to remain, 

Where plain, none might her see, nor she see any plain. 

This is a matter not to be covered up by silence. The 
political press has a fearful responsibility now resting 
upon it ; it has^a sacred duty to the country to perform, 
from which it cannot, must not shrink. It should be 
known, that there is a wider desire for knowledge on 
Popery, in its multifarious bearings upon society than 
some seem to be aware of, and especially in its effect up- 
on our civil institutions ; a desire, which, having been 

* Both Bishop Fenwick of Philadelphia, and Bishop Du- 
bois of Neiv- York, have just issued orders, in ecclesiastical 
form, to those under their jurisdiction ! to refrain from at- 
tending on the discussions where Popery is the subject of de- 
bate. These documents are worthy of notice. They well 
illustrate several despotic principles inherent in the Popish 
system. How would these orders be read by any Protes- 
tant sect, as coming from their own clergy ? 



PREFACE. XXIX 

created by the necessity of the times, (by the fact of un- 
usual efforts made by foreign governments, hostile to our 
institutions, to spread throughout the country,) Popery 
must be satisfied. 

The political character of Popery is a legitimatesub- 
ject of discussion in the secular press, and we believe 
that when the intelligent conductors of our journals 
shall have justly apprehended that part of the mixed sys- 
tem of Popery which belongs to it as a, political system, 
they will no longer be deterred by the senseless cry of 
religious controversy, from lending their columns and 
their pens for its fearless discussion. They will see that 
the religious question of Popery is a separate affair, and 
with the^discrimination that should belong to them in 
their responsible situations, will be able to keep the dis- 
tinct religious and political character of the controversy, 
each within its respective limits. 

I The public mind is awake far and wide to the fact, 
that Popery is a political as well as a religious system, nor 
will freemen be lulled to sleep by the popish anodyne of 
no controversy ; they will not rest till these more than 
suspicious manoeuverings of Jesuit intriguers ;* of Aus- 
trian conspirators against their liberties, shall have been 
searched to the bottom, 



PREFATORY REMARKS. 



The following Numbers written for the New- York Ob* 
server in the beginning of the year 1834, and during seve* 
J*ai weeks of confinement by indisposition, have been, per- 
haps, more extensively copied into the religious journals o 
the different Christian denominations than any communi- 
cations, (with perhaps a single exception,) of the same ex- 
tent since the establishment of religious newspapers; and 
although the subject matter is almost altogether political, 
giving proofs of a serious foreign conspiracy against the 
government, yet the writer is not aware that a single secu- 
lar journal in the United States has taken the pains to in- 
vestigate the matter, or even to ask if indeed there may 
not be good grounds for believing it true. The silence of 
the secular press on a subject which has roused the atten- 
tion of so large a body of the Protestant community may 
indeed be accounted for in part, perhaps altogether, from 
the all-engrossing election contests which have agitated the 
country from one extremity of the land to the other ; for 
the writer would certainly be very reluctant to adopt th e 
belief which has repeatedly been urged upon him by many, 
that the secular journals dare not attack Popery; he will no^ 
believe that dare not ever stood in the way of the duty of any 



16 PREFATORY REMARKS. 

patriotic, independent conductor of the American press.* 
At the solicitation of many citizens, without distinction 
of religious denomination or of political party, the writer 
has consented to collect the numbers into a pamphlet, add. 
ing notes illustrative of many matters which could not so 
well have been introduced into the columns of a newspaper* 
That a vigorous and unexampled effort is making by the 
despotic governments of Europe to cause Popery to over- 
spread this country, is a fact too palpable to be contradict- 
ed. Did not official documents lately published put this 
fact beyond dispute, yet the writer had personal evidence 
sufficient to convince him of the fact and of the political 
object of the enterprise, while residing in Italy in the years 
1830, 31, from conversations with nobles and gentlemen of 
different countries, with the officers of various foreign go- 
vernments, visiting and resident in the Roman and Aus- 
trian states, and with priests and other ecclesiastics of the 
Roman faith. Sometimes it was hinted to him as a check 
to too sunguine anticipations of the triumph of the experi- 
ment of our democratic republican government ; some- 
times it was told him by the former class, in a tone of ex- 
ultation, that a cause was in operation which would surely 
overthrow our institutions and gradually bring us under a 
form of government less obnoxious to the pride, and less 
dangerous to the existence of the antiquated despotic sys- 
tems of Europe. In addition to these hints to the writer 
concerning the efforts making by the governments of Eu" 
rope to carry Popery through all our borders, other Amerf 

* A friend to whom this part was read smiled, and said, " You are 
sufficiently guarded in your language, but how many patriotic, inde- 
pendent conductors of the American press are there ? Can you name 
one?" 



PREFATORY REMARKS. 17 

can travelers will testify to similar hints made to them. By 
one I am permitted to say. that the celebrated naturalist, 
the late Baron Cuvier, known also as a zealous Protestant 
inquired of him with marks of concern if it were indeed 
true that Popery had made such progress in the United 
States as to cause the exultation (which it seems was n 
secret) among the legitimates of Europe. And again, that 
a distinguished member of one of the Protestant German 
embassies in Rome also made similar inquiries of him, ha- 
ving heard much boasting of the progress of Popery in the 
United States, adding this pertinent remark, "they will be 
hammer or nails, sir]; they will persecute or be persecuted." 
These facts may be of so much importance in aid of the 
other proofs of a conspiracy which these numbers unfold, 
as to show that among the various higher classes of Europe 
the enterprise of a Popish crusade in this country is not 
only a subject of notoriety, but is viewed with great interest, 
and is considered as having a most important politica 
bearing. 

In the following numbers the writer has chosen to rest 
the evidence of conspiracy mainly on official documents 
published in Vienna, because they have been translated and 
published,* and are within the reach of any citizen of the 
country who chooses more closely to examine them. He 
has also availed himself of facts in the operations of Popish 
agents in this country, so far as their workings have been 
occasionally revealed. 

The writer will add in conclusion, that he writes not in 
the interest of a sect or a party, for the question of Popery 
is not identified with either political party. He has lived 

* In the New-York Observer, of the months of January and Febru- 
ary, 1834. 

2 



18 PREFATORY REMARKS. 

too long ia foreign countries to be able to identify himself 
with the local interests of mere party at home, whether in 
religion or politics. The great democratic features of his 
country's institutions, as contradistinguished from the des- 
potic, monarchical, and aristocratic systems of Europe, 
were admired by him as they appeared more boldly reliev- 
ed, viewed from abroad in such striking contrast to all 
around him ; and he is thoroughly persuaded that these 
democratic institutions, if suffered to have their unobstruct- 
ed course, unobstructed except by the natural checks of 
education and religion actively and universally diffused and 
sustained, are more favorable to civil liberty and to the final 
triumph of truth, and consequently to human happiness, 
than any other civil institutions in the world. The writer 
entertaining these views, has deemed it an imperative duty, 
at any sacrifice, to warn his countrymen of a subtle enemy 
to the democracy of the country, and to conjure them a a 
they value their civil and religious institutions, to watch 
the Protean shapes of Popery, to suspect and fear it most 
when it allies itself to our interests in the guise of a friend; 
Mistrust of all that Popery does, or affects to do, whether as a 
friend or foe, in any part of the country, is the only feeling that 
hue charity, universal charity, allows us to indulge. 

New-York, January, 1835, 



FOREIGN CONSPIRACY 



AGAINST THR 



LIBERTIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



CHAPTER L 



The first impression of the improbability of foreign conspi- 
racy considered — Present political condition of Europe 
favors an enterprise against our institutions — The war of 
opinions commenced — Despotism against Liberty — The 
vicissitudes of this war — The official declaration of the de- 
spotic party against all liberty — Necessity to the triumph 
of despotism, that American liberty should be destroyed — 
The kind of attack upon us most likely to be adopted 

{ from the nature of the contest — Particular reasons why 
\ our institutions are obnoxious to the European govern- 
ments — Has the attack commenced ? Yes! by Austria- 
Through a Society called the St. Leopold Foundation — 
Ostensibly religious in its designs. 



Does this heading seem singular? What, it 
will be said, is it at all probable that any nation, 
or combination of nations, can entertain designs 
against us, a people so peaceable, and at the same 
time so distant ? Knowing the daily increasing re- 
sources of this country in all the means of defence 
against foreign aggression, how absurd in the na- 
tions abroad to dream of a conquest on this soil ? 
Let me, nevertheless, ask attention, while I humbly 



20 WAR OF DESPOTISM AND LIBERTY. 

offer my reasons for believing that a conspiracy 
exists, that its plans are already in operation, and 
that we are attacked in a vulnerable quarter, which 
cannot be defended by our ships, our forts, or our 
armies. 

Who among us is not aware that a mighty strug- 
gle of opinion is in our days agitating all the na- 
tions of Europe ; that there is a war going on be- 
tween despotism on one side, and liberty on the 
other.* And with what deep anxiety should Ame- 
ricans watch the vicissitudes of the conflict. Hav- 
ing long since achieved our own victory in the great 
strife between arbitrary power and freedom ; hav- 
ing demonstrated, by successful experiment before 
the world, the safety, the happiness, the superior 
excellence of a republican government, a govern- 
ment proceeding from the people as the true source 
of power ; enjoying in overflowing abundance the 
rich blessings of such a government, must we not 
regard with more than common interest the efforts 
of mighty nations to break away frcm the preju- 
dices, and habits, and sophistical opinions of ages 
of darkness, and struggling to attain the same glo- 
rious privileges of rational freedom ? But there 
are other motives than that of curiosity, or of mere 
sympathy with foreign trouble, that should arouse 

* See note A, Appendix. 



AMERICA INTERESTED IN THE WAR. £1 

our solicitude in the fearful crisis which has at 
length arrived, a crisis which the prophetic tongue 
of a great British statesman* long since foretold, 
the icar of opinion, threatening the world with a 
more frightful sacrifice of human life than history 
in any of its blood-stained pages records. Happily 
separated by an ocean-barrier from the great arena 
where the physical action of this bloody drama is 
to be performed, we are secure from the immediate 
physical effects of the strife ; but we cannot re- 
main unaffected by the result. 

Of European wars arising from the cravings of 
personal ambition, from thirst for national glory, 
from desire of territorial increase, or from other lo- 
cal causes, we might safely be ignorant both of 
cause and result. No armed bands of a conqueror 
flushed with victory could give us a moment's 
alarm. But in a war of opinions, in a war of prin- 
ciples, in which the very foundations of government 
are subverted, and the whole social fabric upturn- 
ed, we cannot, if we would, be uninterested in the 
result. Principles are not bounded by geographi- 
cal limits. Oceans present to them no barriers. 
All of principle that belongs to despotism through- 
out the world, whether in the iron systems of Rus- 
sia and Austria, or the scarcely less civilized sys- 

* Mr. Canning. 

2* 



22 VICISSITUDES OF THE WAR. 

tern of China, and all of principles that belongs to 
pure American freedom in the United States, or in 
the mixed systems of Britain, France, and some 
other European states, are in this great contest ar- 
rayed in opposition. The triumph of the one or 
the other principle, whether in the field of battle, 
or in the secret councils of the cabinet, or the con- 
gress of ministers, or the open debate, produces 
effects wherever society exists. The recent con- 
vulsions in Europe should not pass unheeded by 
Americans. The three days' revolution of France ; 
the reform in Britain on the side of liberty ; the 
suppressed revolutions of Italy and Poland on the 
side of despotism ; the yet doubtful victory of the 
two principles now in contest in Portugal and 
Spain ;* the crooked diplomacy, the contradictory 
measures, the faithless promises of the despotic 
cabinets, all show that the war of principles has 
indeed commenced, and that Europe is agitated 
to its very center with the anxieties of the con- 
test. 

No open annual message reveals frankly to all 
the world the true internal condition of the op- 
pressed nations of Europe. From the well guard- 
ed walls of the secret council-chamber of the im- 



* These numbers were written in January and February, 
1834. 



DECLARATIONS OF THE HOLY ALLIANCE. 23 

perial power, documents seldom escape to show 
us the strength of the opposing principle. Despot- 
ism glosses over all its oppressions. The people 
are always happy under the paternal sway. They 
that plead for liberty are always enemies of pub- 
lic order. " Order reigns in Warsaw," was the 
proclamation that told the world that despotism 
had triumphed over Poland, and none now may 
know the number of her sons of freedom still at 
large, still unexiled to the mines of Siberia ; yet 
it is great ; for Russia, and Prussia, and Austria 
have leagued anew against unconquerable Po- 
land ; and the agony of determination, the despe- 
ratejresolution which the Russian Autocrat has 
just uttered, tells the secret of the yet unvanquish- 
ed spirit of Polish patriots, and at the same time 
discloses the plot of mighty efforts, of united ef- 
forts, of persevering efforts utterly to extinguish 

liberty. 

" As long as I live," says the Emperor, " I 
will oppose a will of iron to the progress of liberal 
opinions. The present generation is lost, but we 
must labor with zeal and earnestness to improve 
the spirit of that to come. It may require an 
hundred years ; I am not unreasonable, I give 
you a whole age, but you must work without re- 
laxation." 



24 WE MUST EXPECT THEIR ATTACK. 

This is language without ambiguity, bold, un- 
disguised ; it is the clear and official disclosure 
of the determination of the Holy Alliance against 
liberty. It proclaims unextinguishable hatred, a 
will of iron. There is no compromise with liberty ; 
a hundred years of efforts unrelaxed, if necessary, 
shall be put forth to crush it for ever. Its very 
name must be blotted from the earth. What ! 
and is there a Holy Alliance, a " union of Chris- 
tian princes," leagued to extinguish the kindling 
sparks of liberty in Europe 1 and will they make 
no effort to quench the great altar-fires that blaze 
in their strength in the temples of this land of 
liberty ? An oversight like this would seem to be 
too palpable for the wisdom of the despotic cabi- 
nets to commit. This conquest must be achieved, 
or liberty will never die in Europe. 

With declarations before us, thus officially put 
forth by despotism, of such exterminating hostility 
to liberty, is it not possible that an attack on us 
may be made from a quarter t and in a shape little 
expected ? Should we not at least look about us ? 
Nations may be attacked and conquered too, with 
other weapons than the sword. The diplomatic 
pen, as England can testify, has often wrested 
from her that territory which her sword had won. 
We need not look, therefore, to the ports of Eu- 



REASONS OF THEIR HOSTILITY. 25 

rope to see if fleets are gathering. We are safe 
enough from ships. Nor need we fear diplomacy? 
for we have " entangling alliances with none." 
Where, then, shall we look ? What shape would 
attack be likely to assume ? Let the nature of the 
contest aid us in the inquiry. It is the war of 
opinion ; the war of antagonist principles ; the 
war of despotism against liberty. But how can 
this contest be carried on in this country ? We 
have not the warring opinions to set in array 
against each other. One principle is certainly 
absent. We have no party in favor of despotism. 
This party is to be created. If then a scheme 
can be devised for sowing the seeds and rearing 
the plants of despotism, that is the scheme which 
would find favor with the Holy Alliance, to sub- 
serve its designs against American liberty. 
,v Is it asked, Why should the Holy Alliance feel 
interested in the destruction of transatlantic liber- 
ty ? I answer, the silent but powerful and in- 
creasing influence of our institutions on Europe 
is reason enough. The example alone of pros- 
perity which we exhibit in such strong contrast to 
the enslaved, priest-ridden, tax-burdened despot- 
isms of the old world, is sufficient to keep those 
countries in perpetual agitation. How can it be 
otherwise ? Will a sick man, long despairing of 



2G INFLUENCE OP OUR FREE INSTITUTIONS. 

cure, learn that there is a remedy for him, and not 
desire to procure it ? Will one born to think a 
dungeon his natural home, learn through his grated 
bars that man may be free, and not struggle to 
obtain his liberty? And what do the people of 
Europe behold in this country? They witness 
the successful experiment of a free government ; 
a government of the people ; without rulers de ju- 
re divino, (by divine right ;) having no hereditary 
privileged classes ; a government exhibiting good 
order and obedience to law, without an armed po- 
lice and secret tribunals ; a government out of 
debt ; a people industrious, enterprising, thriving 
in all their interests \ without monopolies ; a peo- 
ple religious without an establishment; moral 
and honest without the terrors of the confessional 
or the inquisition ; a people not harmed by the un- 
controlled liberty of the press and freedom of 
opinion ; a people that read what they please, and 
think, and judge, and act for themselves ; a peo- 
ple enjoying the most unbounded security of per- 
son and property ; among whom domestic conspi- 
racies are unknown ; where the poor and rich have 
equal justice ; a people social and hospitable, 
exerting all their energies in schemes of public 
and private benefit without other control than mu- 
tual forbearance. A government so contrasted in 



WE ARE ACTUALLY ATTACKED BY AUSTRIA, 2? 

all points with absolute governments must* and 
does engage|the intense solicitude both of the ru- 
lers and people of the old world. Every revolution 
that has occurred in Europe for the last half cen- 
tury has been in a greater or less degree the con- 
sequence of our own glorious revolution. The 
great political truths there promulgated to the 
world, are the seed of the disorders, and conspira* 
cies, and revolutions of Europe, from the first 
French revolution down to the present time. 
These revolutions are the throes of the internal 
life, breaking the bands of darkness with which su- 
perstition and despotism have hitherto bound the 
nations struggling into the light of a new age- 
Can despotism know all this, and not feel it neces- 
sary to do something to counteract the evil ? 

Let us look around us. Is despotism doing any 
thing in this country ? It becomes us to be jealous. 
We have cause to expect an attack, and that it 
will be of a kind suited to the character of the con- 
test, the war of opinion. Yes ! despotism is doing 
something. Austria is now acting in this country. 
She has devised a grand scheme. She has orga- 
nized a great plan for doing something here, which 
sfte, at least, deems important. She has her Jesuit 
missionaries traveling through the land ; she has 
supplied them with money, and has furnished a 



98 WE ARE ACTUALLY ATTACKED BY AUSTRIA; 

fountain for a regular supply. She had expended a 
year ago more than seventy-four thousand dollars 
in furtherance of her design !* These are not sur- 
mises. They are facts. Some official documents, 
giving the constitution and doings of this Foreign 
Society, have lately made their appearance in the 
New- York Observer, and have been copied exten- 
sively into other journals of the country. This 
society having ostensibly a religious object, has 
been for nearly four years at work in the United 
States, without attracting, out of the religious 
world, much attention to its operations. The great 
patron of this apparently religious scheme is no 
less a personage than the Emperor of Austria. 
The Society is called the St. Leopold Foundation. 
It is organized in Austria. The field of its opera- 
tions is these United States. It meets and forms 
its nlans in Yienna. Prince Metternich has it un- 
der his watchful care. The Pope has given it his 
apostolic benediction, and " His Royal Highness 
Ferdinand Y. King of Hungary and Crown 
Prince of the other hereditary states, has been 
most graciously pleased, prompted by a piety 
worthy the exalted title of an apostolic king, to 
accept the office of Protector of the Leopold 

* From the best authority, I have just learned, Dec. 
1834, that $100,000 have been received from Austria with- 
in two years ! 



UNDER THE CLOAK OF RELIGION. 23 

Foundation." Now in the present state of the 
war of principles in Europe, is not a society form- 
ed avotvedly to act upon this country, originating 
in the dominions of a despot, and holding its se- 
cret councils in his capital, calculated to excite 
suspicion ? Is it credible that a society got up un- 
der the auspices of the Austrian government, un- 
der the superintendence of its chief officers of 
state, supplying with funds a numerous body of 
Jesuit emissaries who are organizing themselves 
in all our borders, actively passing and re-passing 
between Europe and America ; is it credible, I say, 
that such a society has for its object purely a reli- 
gious reform ? Is it credible that the manufactu- 
rers of chains for binding liberty in Europe, have 
suddenly become benevolently concerned only for 
the religious welfare of this republican people 1 
If this Society be solely for the propagation of the 
Catholic faith, one would think that Rome and not 
Vienna should be its head quarters ! that the Pope, 
not the Emperor of Austria, should be its grand 
patron ! It must be allowed that this should be a 
subject of general and absorbing interest. If des- 
potism has devised a scheme for operating against 
its antagonist principle in this country, the strong 
hold, the very citadel of freedom, it becomes us to 
look about us. It is high time that we awake to 

3 



30 k SUSPICIOUS BENEVOLENCE. 

the apprehension of danger. I propose to show 
why I believe this ostensibly religious society 
covers other designs than religious. 



CHAPTER II. 



Political character of the Austrian government, the power 
attacking us— The old avowed enemy of Protestant li- 
berty—Character of the people of Austria— Slaves— Cha- 
racter of Prince Metternich, the arch- contriver of plans 
' to stifle liberty— These enemies of all liberty suddenly 
anxious for the civil and religious liberty of the United 
States— The absurdity of their ostensible design exposed 
— The avowed objects of Austria in the Leopold Founda 
tion — Popery the instrument to act upon our institutions 

The documents lo which I have alluded, exhi 
bit so much of the correspondence of the " Si. 
Leopold Foundation," as it was deemed advisable 
to publish in Vienna. They consist of letters and 
statements from Jesuits, bishops and priests, re- 
siding or itinerating in this country, and whose re- 
sources are chiefly derived from the Society in 
Austria. In documents thus prepared by Jesuits, 
(the most wary order of ecclesiastics,) to draw 
forth more liberal supplies from abroad, and then 
submitted to the revision of the most cautious ca- 
binet of Europe, that so much only may be pub- 
lished as will attain their object in the Austrian 
dominions, while all that might excite suspicion in 
the United States is concealed, we must expect to 



32 CHARACTER OF AUSTRIA. 

find great care to avoid any unnecessary exposure 
of covert political designs. The evidence there- 
fore of a concerted political attack upon our insti- 
tutions, which I conceive to lurk under the sudden 
and extraordinary zeal of Austria for the religious 
welfare of the United States, will not depend al- 
together on the information derived from these do- 
cuments. Such an attack is what might be ex- 
pected from the present political attitude of the 
European nations, in regard to the principles of 
despotism and liberty, from the powerful and un- 
avoidable effect which our institutions exert in fa- 
vor of the popular principle ; and also from the 
known political character of Austria. 

Who, and what is Austria, the government that 
is so benevolently concerned for our religious wel- 
fare ? Austria is one of that Holy Alliance of des- 
potic governments, one of the " union of Christian 
princes," leagued against the liberties of the peo- 
ple of Europe. Austria is one of the partitioners of 
Poland ; the enslaver and despot of Italy. Her 
government is the most thorough military despot- 
ism in the world. She is the declared and con- 
sistent enemy of civil and religious liberty ; of the 
freedom of the press ; in short, of every great 
principle in those free institutions which it is our 
glory and privilege to inherit from our fathers. 



THE PEOPLE, AND PRINCE METTERNICH. } ~ 33 

Austria, from the commencement of the Reforma- 
tion to the present time, has been the bitter enemy 
of Protestantism. The famous thirty years' war, 
marked by every kind of brutal excess, was waged 
to extirpate those very principles of civil and re- 
ligious liberty which lie at the foundation of our 
government ; and had Austria then triumphed, this 
republic would never have been founded. 

And what are the people of Austria ? They are 
slaves, slaves in body and mind, whipped and dis- 
ciplined by priests to have no opinion of their own, 
and taught to consider their Emperor their God. 
They are the jest and by-word of the Northern 
Germans, who never speak of Austrians but with 
a sneer, and " as slaves unworthy the name of 
Germans ; as slaves both mentally and physi- 
cally." [Dwight/] 

And who is Prince Metternich, whose letter of 
approval, in the name of his master the Emperor, 
is among the documents ? He is the master of his 
Master, the arch-contriver of the plans for stifling 
liberty in Europe and throughout the world. 
" Metternich," says Dwight, in his Travels in 
Germany, " by his wonderful talent in exciting 
fear, has thus far controlled the cabinets of Eu- 
rope, and has exerted an influence over the desti- 
nies of nations, little, if any inferior to that of Na- 

3* 



34 ACTS OF METTERNICH AGAINST LIBERTY. 

poleon." He persuaded the Emperor of Austria 
and King of Prussia not to fulfill the promise they 
so solemnly made to their German subjects of 
giving them free constitutions. It was the influ- 
ence of Metternich that prevented Alexander from 
assisting Greece in her struggles for liberty. He 
lent Austrian vessels to assist the Turks in the 
subjugation of the Greeks. Metternich crushed 
the liberties of Spain by inducing Louis XVIII. 
against his wishes, to send 100,000 men thither 
under the Duke d'Angouleme to restore public 
order! "When Sicily, Naples, and Genoa, in 
1820-1, threw off the galling yoke of slavery, 
Metternich sent his 30,000 Austrian bayonets 
into Italy and re-established despotism. And when 
in 1831, (as the writer can testify from personal 
observation,) goaded to desperation by the extor- 
tion, and tyranny, and bad faith of the Papal go- 
vernment, the Italian patriots made a noble and 
successful effort to remedy their political evils by 
a revolution firm, yet temperate, founded in the 
most tolerant principles, marked by no excess, 
and hailed by the legations with universal joy, 
again did this arch-enemy of human happiness let 
loose his myrmidons, overwhelming the cities, 
dragging the patriots, Italy's first citizens, to the 
scaffold, or incarcerating them in the dungeons of 



[AUSTRIA CONCERNED FOR OUR WELFARE."] 35 

Venice, filling whole provinces with mourning, 
and bringing back upon the wretchedly oppressed 
population the midnight darkness which the dawn 
of liberty had begun to dispel. " Prince Metter- 
nich," says Dwight, "is regarded by the liberals 
of Europe as the greatest enemy of the human race 
who has lived for ages. You rarely hear his name 
mentioned without exciting indignation, not only 
in the speaker but in the auditors. Metternich has 
not been attacking men but principles, and has 
done so much towards destroying on the conti- 
nent those great political truths which nations 
have acquired through ages of effort and suffering, 
that there is reason to fear, should his system con- 
tinue for half a century, liberty will forsake the 
continent to revisit it no more. The Saxons lite- 
rally abhor this Prince. The German word miU 
temacht means midnight. From the resemblance 
of the word to Metternich, as well as from his 
efforts to cover Europe with political darkness, 
the Saxons call him Prince Mittemacht — Prince 
Midnight." 

This is the government and the people which 
have all at once manifested so deep an interest in 
the spiritual condition of this heretic land. It is 
this nation of slaves, this remnant of the supersti- 
tion, and vassalage, and degradation of the dark 



36 A SUSPICIOUS BENEVOLENCE. 

ages, from whom the light of the nineteenth cen- 
tury has been so carefully shut out, that it fondly 
conceits its own darkness to be light, its death- 
like torpor, order — it is this nation, not yet disen- 
thralled from the chains of superstition, that is 
anxious to enlighten us, in the United States, in 
the principles of civil and religious liberty. Civil 
and religious liberty ! words that may not be ut- 
tered in Austria but at the risk of the dungeon ; 
words that would carry such shrieks of dismay 
through the ranks of Prince Metternich's vassals, 
as the flash of a torch would bring forth from a 
cavern of owls. 

And can it be believed that such a government, 
the determined, consistent enemy of liberty, has 
no interested motive, no political design, no other 
than sentiments of Christian benevolence in her 
operations in this country ? Is it likely that we, 
Protestant republicans of the United States, have 
won the kind regards of the Austrian government, 
which has been the persevering foe of the Refor- 
mation and its republican fruits since the days of 
Luther ? Has not Austria had vexation, and anx- 
iety, and trouble enough for fifty years past, in 
stopping up the opening crevices of the European 
dungeon through which the unwelcome light of 
American liberty has so often broken, to be per- 



A GOVERNMENT NOT A PRIVATE ENTERPRI2E, 37 

fectly apprised of the hated source of that light ? 
Yes, she cannot but now perceive that those Pro- 
testant principles which she has been incessantly 
engaged in endeavoring to suppress, driven by the 
winds of persecution from Europe, have been tak- 
ing root, and strengthening in a congenial soil, 
and are here bearing their genuine fruits, liberty 
and happiness, and all the religious and social vir- 
tues. She cannot view this Protestant nation grow- 
ing to gigantic dimensions, a living proof of the 
truth and salutary influence of the principles she 
hates, without feeling that her own principles of 
darkness are in danger. And well may she be dis- 
mayed. Yes, Austria has turned her eyes towards 
us, and she loves us as the owl loves the sun. 
Can any one doubt that she would extinguish 
every spark of liberty in this country if she had 
the power ? Can any one believe that she would 
make no attempt to abate an evil which daily 
threatens more and more the very existence of her 
throne ? We may be told by some, perhaps, that 
her designs are purely of a religious character. 
Who can believe it? No one who has been in Aus- 
tria. Every intelligent man who has resided even 
for a short time in the Austrian dominions, must 
have seen enough of the craft, both of the govern- 
ment and the priests, to make him suspicious of 



38 CATHOLIC MISSIONS THE INSTRUMENT. 

all their doings, and most so, when they are most 
lavish of their professions of kindness and benevo- 
lence. " Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes." 

But let us see what Austria avows as her design 
in the formation of the Leopold Foundation * The 
first great object is " to promote the greater ac- 
tivity of Catholic missions in America." She may 
be, and doubtless is, perfectly sincere in this de- 
sign, for it is only necessary that she should suc- 
ceed in her avowed object to have her utmost 
wishes accomplished. She need avow no other 
aim. If she gains this, she gains all. If she suc- 

* Some may be inclined to ask, Is not this society" a pri- 
vate association, merely chartered by the government, not 
differing materially from the religious societies in our own 
country ? I answer that, were the Leopold Foundation an 
association of private individuals, (which it is not,) yet got 
up in the Austrian dominions, it would still be a govern- 
ment affair. For we must not confound the practices"of 
two governments, so totally opposite in the administration 
of all their affairs as the Austrian and our own. From the 
happy separation of church and state in our own country, 
religious societies, of whatever character, have no connec- 
tion with the government. They move in a separate sphere 
of action, yet in perfect harmony with it. But in Austria, 
no plan, no society of any kind is private ; the government 
interferes in every thing, is all in all. Even the persecuted 
Maroncelli, confined in the dungeons of Spielberg for the 
crime of loving the political principles of this country, must 
wait a week, at the risk of his life, for a gracious permis- 
sion from the Paternal government to have his leg ampu- 
tated. Yes, a private matter like this is a government affair ; 
how much more then a grand society, with the Emperor 
its patron, the crown prince and heir to the imperial throne 
its protector, and Prince Metternich, and all the dignitaries 
of the empire, temporal and ecclesiastical, engaged in its 
operations ? It is the Austrian government that is engaged 
In this plan of an ostensibly religious character. 



CATHOLIC MISSIONS THE INSTRUMENT 

ceeds in fastening upon us the chains 
bondage, she has a people as fit for any 
pleases to grace our necks withal, as a 
over whom she now holds her despotic r 
has selected a fitting instrument for her ^ 
Her armies can avail her nothing against us, tor 
the ocean intervenes. Her diplomacy gives her : 
hold, for there are scarcely any political relatio 
between us. The only instrument by which si 
can gain the least influence ia these States, is thl 
precisely which she has chosen, lis perfect 
to accomplish any political design agair 
liberties of this country and of the world 
next consider. 



CHAPTER III. 



Popery, in its political, not its religious character, the ob* 
ject of the present examination — The fitness of the in- 
strument to accomplish the political designs of despotism 
considered^-The principles of a despotic and free govern- 
ment briefly contrasted— Despotic principles fundamental 
In Popery— Proved fry infallible testimony— Papal claims 
of divine right and plenitude of power— Abject principles 
of Popery illustrated from the Russian catechism— Pro» 
testantism from its birth in favor of liberty— Luther on 
the 4th of July attacked the presumptuous claim of di* 
vine right—Despotism and Popery hand in hand against 
the liberty of conscience, liberty of opinion, and liberty 
of the press — The anti-republican declarations of the 

\ present Pope Gregory XVI. 

Before commencing the examination of the 
perfect fitness of the instrument, Catholic mis- 
sioriS) to accomplish the political designs, upon 
this country, of Austria and her despotic allies, I 
would premise, that I have nothing to do in these 
remarks with the purely religious character of the 
tenets of the Roman Catholic sect. They are not 
in discussion. If any wish to resolve their doubts 
in the religious controversy, the acute pens of the 
polemic writers of the day will furnish them abun- 
dant means of deciding for themselves. But every 
religious sect has certain principles of government 
growing out of its particular religious belief, and 
which will be found to agree or disagree with the 



42 DESPOTIC AND FREE PRINCIPLES CONTRASTED. 

principles of any given form of civil government.* 
It is my design, therefore, briefly to consider some 
of the antagonist principles of the government of 
Austria and of the United States, and compare 
them with the principles of government of the Ca- 
tholic and Protestant sects. By this method we 
shall be able to judge of their bearing on the per- 
manency of our present civil institutions. 

Let us first present to view the fundamental 
principle of government, that principle which, ac- 
cording to its agreement with one or the other of 
the two opposite opinions that divide the world, 
decides entirely the character of the government 
in every part of the body politic. From ivhom is 
authority to govern derived ? Austria and the 
United States will agree in answering— from 
God. The opposition of opinion occurs in the an- 
swers to the next question. To whom on earth is 
this authority delegated ? Austria answers, To 
the Emperor, who is the source of all authority — 
44 J the Emperor do ordain, J &c. The United 
States answers, To the People, in whom resides 
the sovereign power — " We the People do ordain, 
establish, grant" &c. In one principle is recog- 
nized the necessity of the servitude of the people, 
the absolute dependence of the subject, unqualified 

* See Note B. 



DESPOTISM INHERENT IN POPERY. 43 

submission to the commands of the rulers without 
question or examination. The Ruler is Master* 
the People are Slaves. In the other is recognized 
the supremacy of the people, the equality of rights 
and powers of the citizen, submission alone to 
laws emanating from themselves ; the Ruler is a 
public servant, receiving wages from the people 
to perform services agreeable to their pleasure ; 
amenable in all things to them, and holding office 
at their will. The Ruler is Servant, the People are 
•Master. The fact and important nature of the 
difference in these antagonist doctrines, leading, 
as is perceived, to diametrically opposite results, 
are all that is needful to state in order to proceed 
at once to the inquiry, which position does the Ca- 
tholic sect and the Protestant sects severally fa- 
vor ? The Pope, the supreme Head of the Catholic 
church, claims to be the " Vicegerent of God," 
" supreme over all mortals ;" " over all Emperors* 
Kings, Princes, Potentates and People ;" " King 
of kings and Lord of lords." He styles himself, 
" the divinely appointed dispenser of spiritual and 
temporal punishments ;" " armed with power to 
depose Emperors and Kings, and absolve sub- 
jects from their oath of allegiance :" " from him 
lies no appeal ;" " he is responsible to no one on 
earth ;" " he is judged of no one but God." But 



44 ABJECT POLITICAL PRINCIPLES OP POPERY. 

not to go back to former ages to prove the fact of 
the Pope's claiming divine right, let the present 
Pontiff Gregory XVI. testify. He claims, and at- 
tempts the exercise of this plenitude of power , and 
asserts his divine right. The document I quote is 
fresh from the Vatican, scarce four months old, 
a document in which the Pope interferes directly 
in the political affairs of Portugal against Don Pe- 
dro. " How can there be unity in the body," says 
the Pope, " when the members are not united to 
the head, and do not obey it ? And how can this 
union and obedience be maintained in a country 
where they drive from their sees the bishops, legi- 
timately instituted by Him to whom it appertains 
to assign pastors to all the vacant churches, be- 
cause the divine right grants to Him alone the 
primacy of jurisdiction and the plenitude of 
power" The Catholic catechism now taught by 
Catholic priests to the Poles in all the schools of 
Poland, and published by special order at Wilna, 
1832, is very conclusive of the character of Catho- 
lic doctrine. The following questions and answers 
are propounded : 

" Quest. 1. How is the authority of the Em- 
peror to be considered in reference to the spirit of 
Christianity ? Ans. As proceeding immediately 
from God, 



RUSSIAN CATECHISM. 45 

u Quest. 2. How is this substantiated by the 
nature of things ? Ans. It is by the will of God 
that men live in society ; hence the various rela- 
tions which constitute society, which for its more 
complete security is divided into parts called na- 
tions ; the government of which is intrusted to a 
Prince, King, or Emperor, or in other words, to a 
supreme ruler ; we see, then, that as man exists 
in conformity to the will of God, society emanates 
from the same divine will, and more especially the 
supreme power and authority of our lord and mas- 
ter, the Czar. 

" Quest. 3. What duties does religion teach us, 
the humble subjects of his Majesty the Emperor 
of Russia, to practice towards him ? Ans. Wor- 
ship, obedience, fidelity, the payment of taxes, 
service, love and prayer, the whole being com- 
prised in the words worship and fidelity. 

" Quest. 4. Wherein does this worship consist, 
and how should it be manifested ? Ans. By the 
most unqualified reverence in words, gestures, 
demeanor, thoughts and actions. 

44 Quest. 5. What kind of obedience do we owe 
him? Ans. An entire, passive, and unbounded 
obedience in every point of view. 

44 Quest. 6. In what consists the fidelity we 
owe to the Emperor? Ans. In executing his 
commands most rigorously, without examina- 
tion, in performing the duties he requires from us, 
and in doing every thing willingly without mur- 
muring. 

44 Quest. 8. Is the service of his Majesty the 
Emperor obligatory on us ? Ans. Absolutely so ; 
we should, if required, sacrifice ourselves in com- 
pliance with his will, both in a civil and military 

4* 



46 RUSSIAN CATECHISM. 

capacity? and in whatever manner he deems ex- 
pedient. 

" Quest. 9. What benevolent sentiments and 
love are due to the Emperor ? Ans. We should 
manifest our good will and affection, according to 
our station, in endeavoring to promote the prospe- 
rity of our native land, Russia, (not Poland,) as 
well as that of the Emperor, our father, and of his 
august family. * * * 

" Quest, 13. Does religion forbid us to rebel, 
and overthrow the government of the Emperor ? 
Ans. We are interdicted from so doing, at all 
times, and under any circumstances. 

" Quest. 14. Independently of the worship we 
owe to the Emperor, are we called upon to respect 
the public authorities emanating from him ? Ans. 
Yes ; because they emanate from him, represent 
him, and act as his substitute, so that the Empe- 
ror is every where. 

" Quest. 15. What motives have we to fulfill 
the duties above enumerated 1 Ans. The motives 
are two-fold — some natural, others revealed. 

"Quest. 16. What are the natural motives? 
Ans. Besides the motives adduced, there are the 
following : The Emperor, being the head of the 
nation, the father of all his subjects who constitute 
one and the same country, is thereby alone worthy 
of reverence, gratitude, and obedience : for both 
public welfare and individual security depend on 
submissiveness to his commands. 

" Quest. 17. What are the supernatural reveal- 
ed motives for this worship ? Ans. The superna- 
tural revealed motives are, that the Emperor is the 
vicegerent and minister of God to execute the di- 
vine commands ; and consequently, disobedience 
to the Emperor is identified with disobedience to 



LIBERTY INHERENT IN PROTESTANTISM. 47 

God himself; that God will reward us in the world 
to come for the worship and obedience we rend er 
the Emperor, and punish us severely to all eter- 
nity, should we disobey and neglect to worship 
him. Moreover, God commands us to love and 
obey, from the inmost recesses of the heart, 
every authority, and particularly the Emperor, not 
from worldly considerations, but from apprehen- 
sion of the final judgment. * * 

"Quest. 19. What examples confirm this doc- 
trine 1 Ans. The example of Jesus Christ him- 
self, who lived and died in allegiance to the Em- 
peror of Rome, and respectfully submitted to the 
judgment which condemned him to death. We 
have, moreover, the example of the Apostles, 
who both loved and respected them ; they suffer- 
ed meekly in dungeons conformably to the will of 
Emperors, and did not revolt like malefactors and 
traitors. We must, therefore, in imitation of these 
examples, suffer and be silent." 

This is the slavish doctrine taught to the Catho- 
lics of Poland. The people, instead of having 
power or rights, are, according to this catechism, 
mere passive slaves, born for their masters ; 
taught, by a perversion of the threatenings of reli- 
gion, to obey without murmuring, or questioning, 
or examination, the mandates of their human 
deity ; bid to cringe, and fawn, and kiss the very 
feet of majesty, and deem themselves happy to be 
whipped, to be kicked, or to die in his service. 
If. it necessary to say that there is not a Protestant 



48 COINCIDENCE OP POPISH AND DESPOTIC LAWS. 

sect in this country that holds such abject senti- 
ments, or whose creed inculcates such barefaced 
idolatry of a human being ? Protestantism, on the 
contrary, at its birth, while yet bound with many 
of the shackles of Popery, attacked, in its earliest 
lispings of freedom, this very doctrine of divine 
right. It was Luther, and by a singular coinci- 
dence of day too, on the fourth of July, who first, 
in a public disputation at Leipsic with his Popish 
antagonist, called in question the divine right of 
the Pope. 

Let us now examine in contrast other political 
rights, liberty of conscience, liberty of opinion, and 
liberty of the press. Austria and the United States 
differ on these points as widely as on the funda- 
mental question. Austria not only has the press 
in her own territory under censorship, but inter- 
meddles to control the press in the neighboring 
states on the principle of self-preservation. " In 
Saxony," says D wight, "the press is fettered by 
Austria and Prussia, who alledge this reason, 4 that 
all the works published in Saxony, which are not 
on the proscribed list, are freely admitted into our 
dominions. For our happiness, therefore, and the 
stability of our thrones, it is necessary that the press 
shozdd be fettered! P " As to liberty of opinun, 
political or religious, in Austria, no one dreams of 



[popery against liberty op opinion. 49 

the existence of such a thing ; the dungeon is a 
summary mode then of obtaining a most happy 
uniformity of opinion throughout all the imperial 
dominions. It is our glory, on the contrary, that all 
these rights are secured to us by our institutions, 
and freely enjoyed, not only without the least dan- 
ger to the peace of the state, but from the very 
genius of our government they are esteemed 
among its most precious safeguards. What are 
the Catholic tenets on these points ? Shall I go 
back some three or four hundred years, and quote 
the pontifical law which says, [Art. 9.] u The 
Pope has the power to interpret Scripture and to 
teach as he pleases, and no person is allowed to 
teach in a different way?" Or to the fourth Council 
-of Lateran in 1215, which decrees " That all here- 
tics, (that is, all who have an opinion of their own,) 
shall be delivered over to the civil magistrates to 
be burned ?" Or shall I refer to the Catholic Index 
Expurgatorius to the list of forbidden books, to 
show how the press is still fettered? No ! it is un- 
necessary to go farther than the present day. The 
reigning pontiff Gregory XVI. shall again answer 
the question. He has most opportunely furnished 
us with the present sentiments of the Catholic 
church on these very points. In his encyclical let- 
ter, dated Sept. 1832, the Pope, lamenting the 
disorders and infidelity of the times, says* 



50 POPERY AGAINST THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. 

u From this polluted fountain of ' indifference * 
flows that absurd and erroneous doctrine, or rather 
raving, in favor and defence of * liberty of con- 
science,' for which most pestilential error the 
course is opened to that entire and wild liberty of 
opinion which is every where attempting the over- 
throw of religious and civil institutions, and which 
the unblushing impudence of some has held forth 
as an advantage to religion. Hence that pest, of 
all others most to be dreaded in a state, unbridled 
liberty of opinion, licentiousness of speech, and a 
lust of novelty, which, according to the experience 
of all ages, portend the downfall of the most pow- 
erful and flourishing empires." 

" Hither tends that worst and never sufficiently 
to be execrated and detested liberty of the 
press, for the diffusion of all manner of writings, 
which some so loudly contend for, and so actively 
promote." 

He complains too of the dissemination of unli- 
censed books. 

" No means must be here omitted, says Clement 
X1IL, our predecessor of happy memory, in the 
Encyclical Letter on the proscription of bad books 
— no means must be here omitted, as the extremity 
of the case calls for all our exertions, to extermi- 
nate the fatal pest which spreads through so many 



POPERY INTOLERANT OF ALL LIBERTY. 5i 

works, nor can the materials of error be otkenoise 
destroyed than by the flames, which consume the 
depraved elements of the evil." 

Now all this is explicit enough, here is no am- 
biguity. We see clearly, from infallible authority, 
that the Catholic of the present day, wherever he 
may be, if he is true to the principles of his sect, 
cannot consistently tolerate liberty of conscience, 
or liberty of the press. Is there any sect of Pro- 
testants in this country, from whose religious tenets 
doctrines so subversive of civil and religious liber- 
ty can be even inferred ? If there be, I am igno- 
rant of its name. The subject will be pursued in 
She next chapter. 






CHAPTER IV 



The cause of Popery and despotism identical — Striking 
difference between Popery and Protestantism as they 
exist in this country — American Protestantism not con- 
trolled by foreign Protestantism — American Popery en- 
tirely under foreign control — Jesuits the foreign agents 
of Austria, bound by the strongest ties of interest to 
Austrian policy^ not to American— Their dangerous pow- 
er—unparalleled in any Protestant sect— Our free in- 
stitutions opposed in their nature to the arbitrary claims 
of Popery— Duplicity to be expected—Political dangers 
to be apprehended from Roman Catholic organization — 
American Roman Catholic ecclesiastical matters uncon- 
controlled by Americans or in America— Managed in a 
foreign] country, by a foreign power, for political pur- 
poses—Consequences that may easily result from such 
a state of things. 

I exposed in my last chapter the remarkable 
coincidence of the tenets of Popery with the prin- 
ciples of despotic government, in this respect so 
opposite to the tenets of Protestantism ; Popery, 
from its very nature, favoring despotism, and Pro- 
testantism, from its very nature, favoring liberty. 
Is it not then perfectly natural that the Austrian 
government should be active in supporting Catho- 
lic missions in this country ? Is it not clear that 
the cause of Popery is the cause of despotism? 

But there is another most striking and impor- 
tant difference between Popery and Protestantism, 
in their bearing upon the liberties of the country. 

5 



©4 TROTESTANT SECTS MANAGED IN THE COUNTRT. 

No one of the Protestant sects owns any head out 
of this country, or is governed in any of its con- 
cerns by any men or set of men in a foreign land. 
All ecclesiastical officers are nominated and ap- 
pointed or removed by the people of the United 
States. No foreign body has any such union 
with any sect of Protestants in the United States y 
as even to advise, much less to control any of its 
measures. Our Episcopalians appoint their own 
bishops without consulting the church of Eng- 
land ; our Presbyterians are entirely independent 
of the church of Scotland ; and our Wesleyan 
Methodists have no ecclesiastical connection with 
the disciples of Wesley in the old world. But 
how is it in these respects with the Catholics ? 
The right of appointing to all ecclesiastical offices 
in this country, as every where else, is in the Pope, 
(now a mere creature of Austria.) He claims the 
power, as we have seen, by divine right. All the 
bishops, and all the ecclesiastics down to the most 
insignificant officer in the church, are, from the ge- 
nius of the system, entirely under his control. 
And he, of course, will appoint none to office but 
those who will favor the views of Austria. He 
will require all whom he appoints, to support the 
agents whom Austria is sending to this country 
for the accomplishment of her own purposes. 



POPERY MANAGED OUT OF THE COUNTRY. 55 

And who are these agents ? They are, for the 
tmost part, Jesuits, an ecclesiastical order prover- 
bial through the world for cunning, duplicity, and 
total want of moral principle ; an order so skilled 
in all the arts of deception that even in Catholic 
countries, in Italy itself, it became intolerable, and 
the people required its suppression. They are 
Jesuits in the pay and employ of a despotic go- 
vernmenU who are at work on the ignorance and 
passions of our community ; they are foreigners, 
who have been schooled in foreign seminaries in 
the doctrine of passive obedience ; they are fo- 
reigners under vows of perpetual celibacy, and 
having, therefore, no deep and permanent interest 
in this country ; they are foreigners, bound by the 
strong ties of pecuniary interest and ambition to 
the service of a foreign despot.* Is there no 
danger to our free institutions from a host com- 
manded by such men, whose numbers are con- 
stantly increasing by the machinations and funds 
of Austria ? 

Consider, too, the power which these Jesuits 
and other Catholic priests possess through the 
confessional, of knowing the private characters 
and affairs of all the leading men in the commu- 
nity ; the power arising from their right to pre- 

' See note C. 



5$ DANGER0U3 TOWER OF JESUITS 

scribe the hinds and degrees of penance, and the 
power arising from the right to refuse absolution to 
those who do not comply with their commands* 
Suppose such powers were exercised by the min- 
isters of any other sect, the Episcopalian, the 
Methodist, the Presbyterian , the Baptist, &c. 
what an outcry would be raised in the land ! And 
should not the men who possess such powers be 
jealously watched by all lovers of liberty ? 

Is it possible that these Jesuits can have a sin- 
cere attachment to the principles of free institu- 
tions ? Do not these principles oppose a constant 
barrier to their exercise of that arbitrary power* 
which they claim as a divine right, and which they 
exercise too in all countries where they are domi- 
nant? Can it not be perceived, that although 
they may find it politic for the present to conceal 
their anti-republican tenets, yet this concealment 
will be merely temporary, and is only adopted 
now, the better to lull suspicion ? Is it not in 
accordance with all experience of Popish policy, 
that Jesuits should encroach by little and little, 
and persevere till they have attained to plentitude 
of power? At present they have but one aim in 
this country, which absorbs all others, and that is 
to make themselves popular. If they succeed in 
this, we shall then learn, when too late to remedy 



UNDER AUSTRIAN CONTROL. 57 

the evil, that Popery abandons none of its divine 
rights. The leaders of this sect are disciplined 
and organized, and have their adherents entirely 
subservient to their will. Here then is a regular 
party, a religious secU ready to throw the weight 
of its power as circumstances may require — ready 
to favor any man or set of men who will engage 
to favor it. 

And to whom do these leaders look for then* in- 
structions ? Is it to a citizen or body of citizens 
belonging to this country ; is it to a body of men 
kept in check by the ever-jealous eyes of other 
bodies around them, and by the immediate publi- 
city which must be given to all their doings ? No, 
they are men owning no law on this side of the 
ocean ; they are the Pope and his Consistory of 
Cardinals, following the plans and instructions of 
the imperial cabinet of Austria, — plans formed 
in the secret councils of that cabinet, instructions 
delivered in secret, according to the modes of des- 
potism, to their obedient officers, and distributed 
through the well disciplined ranks in this country, 
to be carried into effect in furtherance of any poli- 
tical designs the Austrian cabinet may think ad- 
vantageous to its' own interests. And will these 
designs be in favor of liberty ? With a party thus 
formed and disciplined among us, who will ven- 

5* 



58 RESULT OF THIS CONTROL: 

ture to say that our elections will not be un- 
der the control of a Metternich, and that the ap- 
pointment of a President of the United States 
will not be virtually made in the Imperial Cabinet 
of Vienna, or the Consistory of Cardinals at 
Rome % Will this be pronounced incredible ? It 
will be the almost certain result of the dominion 
of Popery in this country. 

But we need not imagine that it will always be 
deemed expedient to preserve the name of Presi- 
dent, or even the elective character of our chief 
magistrate. How long would it take the sophis- 
try that deludes the mind of its victim into the be- 
lief of a man's infallibility, and fixes the delusion 
there indelibly, binding him, soul and body, to be- 
lieve against the evidence of his reason and his 
senses ; holding him in the most abject obedience 
to the will of a fellow-man ; how long, I say, 
would it take such sophistry to impose the duty 
of acknowledging the divine right of an emperor 
over the priest-conquered vassals of this coun- 
try — vassals well instructed in the Russian Cate- 
chism, and prepared to worship, love and obey as 
their lord and master, some scion of the House 
of Hapsburg — the Emperor of the United States ? 



CHAPTER V, 



Points in our political system which favor this foreign at- 
tack — Our toleration of all religious systems — Popery 
opposed to all toleration— Charge of intolerance sub- 
stantiated—The organization of Popery in America con- 
nected with and strengthened by foreign organization — 
Without a parallel among Protestant sects— Great pre- 
ponderance of Popish strength in consequence— The 
divisions among Protestant sects nullifies their attempts 
at combination — Taken advantage of by Jesuits— Popish 
duplicity illustrated in its opposite alliances in Europe 
with despotism, and in America with democracy— The 
laws relating to immigration and naturalization favor 
foreign attack— Emigrants being mostly Catholic, and in 
entire subjection to their priests— No remedy provided 

. by our laws for this alarming evil. 

What I have advanced in my previous chap- 
ters may have convinced my readers that there is 
good reason for believing that the despots of Eu- 
rope are attempting, by the spread of Popery in 
this country, to subvert its free institutions ; yet 
many may think that there are so many "counter- 
acting causes in the constitution of our society, 
that this effort to bind us with the cast-off chains 
of the bigotry and superstition of Europe cannot 
meet with success. I will, therefore, in the pre- 
sent chapter, consider some of the points in our 
political system, of which advantage has already 
been taken to attack us by the wily enemies of 
our liberties. 



60 OUR TOLERATION FAVORS ATTACK. 

It is a beautiful feature in our constitution, that 
every man is left to worship God according to the 
dictates of his own conscience, that the church is 
separated from the state, and that equal protection 
is granted to all creeds. In thus tolerating all 
sects, we have admitted to equal protection not 
only those sects whose religious faith and prac- 
tice support the principle on which the free tolera- 
tion of all is founded, but also that unique, that 
solitary sect, the Catholic, which builds and sup- 
ports its system on the destruction of all tolera- 
tion. Yes, the Catholic is permitted to work in 
the light of Protestant toleration, to mature his 
plans, and to execute his designs to extinguish 
that light, and destroy the hands that hold it. It is 
no refutation of the charge of intolerance here 
made against Catholics as a sect, to show that 
small bodies of them, under peculiar circum- 
stances, have been tolerant, or that in this coun- 
try, where they have always been a small minori- 
ty, they make high professions of ardent love for 
the republican, tolerant institutions of our govern- 
ment. No one can be deceived by evidence so 
partial and circumscribed, while the blood of the 
persecuted for opinion's sake stains with the 
deepest tinge every page of the history of that 
church, aye, even while it is still wet upon the 



POPERY ESSENTIALLY INTOLERANT, 61 

dungeon floors of Italy ; while the intolerant 
and anti-republican principles of Popery are now 
weekly thundered from the Vatican, and echoed 
in our ears by almost every arrival from Europe.* 
Let me not be charged with accusing the Catho- 
lics of the United States with intolerance. They 
are too small a body as yet fully to act out their 
principles, and their present conduct does not af- 
fect the general question in any way, unless it may 
be to prove that they are not genuine and consis- 
tent Catholics. The conduct of a small insulated 
body, under the restraints of the society around it, 
is of no weight in deciding the character of the 
sect, while there are nations of the same infalli- 
ble faith acting out its legitimate principles un- 
controlled, and producing fruits by which all may 
discern, without danger of mistake, the true na- 
ture of the tree. If Popery is tolerant, let us see 
Italy, and Austria, and Spain, and Portugal open 
their doors to the teachers of the Protestant faith ; 
let these countries grant to Protestant mission- 
aries, as freely as we grant to Catholics, leave to 
disseminate their doctrine through all classes in 
their dominions. Then may Popery speak of 
toleration, then may we believe that it has felt 
the influence of the spirit of the age, and has re- 

"See note D, 



62 DESPOTIC ORGANIZATION. 

formed ; but then it will not be Popery, for Pope- 
ry never changes ; it is infallibly the same, infalli- 
bly intolerant. 

The conspirators against our liberties who have 
been admitted from abroad through the liberality 
of our institutions, are now organized in every 
part of the country; they are all subordinates, 
standing in regular steps of slave and master, 
from the most abject dolt that obeys the com- 
mands of his priest, up to the great master-slave 
Metternich, who commands and obeys his Illus- 
trious Master the Emperor.* They report from 
one to another, like the sub-officers of an army, 
up to the commander-in-chief at Vienna, (not the 
Pope, for he is but a subordinate of Austria.^) 

* See note E. 

tLest the charge often made in these numbers should 
seem gratuitous of the Pope being the creature of Austria, 
and entirely subservient to the Imperial Cabinet, it may be 
as well to state that th,e writer was in Rome during the de- 
liberations of the Conclave respecting the election of the 
present Pontiff. It was interesting to him to hear the 
speculations of the Italians on the probability of this or 
that cardinal's election. Couriers were daily arriving from 
the various despotic powers, and intrigues were rife in the 
anti-chambers of the Quirinal palace; now it was said that 
Spain would carry her candidate, now Italy, and now Aus- 
tria, and when Cardinal Capelani was proclaimed Pope, 
the universal cry, mixed too with low-muttered curses, 
was that Austria had succeeded. The new Pope had 
scarcely chosen his title of Gregory XVI. and passed 
through the ceremonies of coronation, before the revolu- 
tion] in his states gave him the opportunity of calling in 
Austria to take possession of the Patrimony of St. Peter, 
which his own troops could not keep for an hour, and at 



NO CHECK FROM PROTESTANT ORGANIZATION. 63 

There is a similar organization among the Catho- 
lics of other countries, and the whole Catholic 
church is thus prepared to throw its weight of 
power and wealth into the hands of Austria, or 
any Holy Alliance of despots who may be per- 
suaded to embark, for the safety of their dynas- 
ties, in the crusade against the liberties of a coun- 
try which, by its simple existence in opposition to 
their theory of legitimate power, is working revo- 
lution and destruction to their thrones. 

Now, to this dangerous conspiracy what have 
we to oppose in the discipline of Protestant sects 1 
However well organized, each according to its 
own manner, these different sects may be, there 
is not one of them that can by any possibility de- 
rive strength, through its organization, from fo- 
reign sects of the same name. Nor is this a matter 
of regret ; it is right that it should be so ; no na- 
tion can be truly independent where it is other- 
wise. Foreign influence, then, cannot find its 
way into the country through any of the Protes- 
tant sects, to the danger of the State. In this re- 
spect Catholics stand alone. They are already the 
most powerful and dangerous sect in the country, 
for they are not confined in their schemes and 

this moment Austrian soldiers hold the Roman Legations 
in submission to the cabinet of Vienna. Is not the Pope a 
creature of Austria? 



£4 UNNATURAL ALLIANCE OP POPERY AND DEMOCRACY. 

means like the other sects, to our own borders, 
but they work ivith the minds and the funds of all 
despotic Europe. 

And not only are each of the Protestant sects 
deprived of foreign aid ; they are weak collective- 
ly, in having no common bond of union among 
themselves, so far as political action is concern- 
ed. The mutual jealousies of the different sects 
have hitherto prevented this, and it is a weakness 
boasted of by Catholics, and of which advantage 
is and ever will be taken while the unnatural es- 
trangement lasts. Catholics have boasted that 
they can play off one sect against another, for in 
the petty controversies that divide the contending 
parties, the pliable conscience of the Jesuit ena- 
bles him to throw the weight of his influence on 
either side, as his interest may be ; the command 
of his superiors, and the alledged good of the 
church, (that is the power of the priesthood,) be- 
ing paramount to all other considerations. 

This pliability of conscience, so advantageous 
in building up any system of oppression, religious 
or political, presents us with strangely contradic- 
tory alliances. In Europe, Popery supports the 
most high-handed despotism, lends its thunders to 
awe the people into the most abject obedience, 
and maintains, at the top of its creed, the indisso- 



IMMIGRATION AND KATtTRAUZATIOff LAWS. 61 

tuble union of church and state ! while in this 
country, where it is yet feeling its way, (oh ! how 
consistent!) it has allied itself with the democracy 
of the land, it is loudest in its denunciations of 
tyranny, the tyranny of American patriots; it is 
first to scent out oppression, sees afar off the 
machinations of the native American Protestants 
to unite church and state, and puts itself forth the 
most zealous guardian of civil and religious liber- 
ty ! With such sentinels, surely our liberties are 
safe, with such guardians of our rights, we may 
sleep on in peace ! 

Another weak point in our system is our laws 
encouraging immigration* and affording facilities 
to naturalization* In the early state of the 
country liberality in these points was thought to 
be of advantage, as it promoted the cultivation of 
our wild lands, but the dangers which now threaten 
our free institutions from this source more than 
balance all advantages of this character. The 
great body of emigrants to this country are the 
hard-working mentally neglected poor of Catholic 
countries in Europe, who have left a land where 
they were enslaved, for one of freedom. Howeve 
well disposed they may be to the country whi 
protects them, and adopts them as citizens, 



See note F. 
6 



7 



66 DANGER FROM IGNORANT EMIGRANTS* 

are not fitted to act with judgment in the political 
affairs of their new country, like native citizens 
educated from their infancy in the principles and 
habits of our institutions. Most of them are too ig- 
norant to act at all for themselves, and expect to 
be guided wholly by others. These others are of 
course their priests^ Priests have ruled them at 
home by divine right ; their ignorant minds can- 
not ordinarily be emancipated from their habitual 
subjection, they will not learn nor appreciate 
their exemption from any such usurpation of 
priestly power in this country, and they are impli- 
citly at the beck of their spiritual guides. They 
live surrounded by freedom, yet liberty of con- 
science, right of private judgment, whether in re- 
ligion or politics, are as effectually excluded by 
the priests, as if the code of Austria already ruled 
the land. They form a body of men whose habits 
of action (for I cannot say thought) are opposed 
to the principles of our free institutions, for they 
are not accessible to the reasonings of the press, 
they cannot and do not think for themselves. 

Every unlettered Catholic emigrant, therefore, 

that comes into the country, is adding to a mass 

f ignorance which it will be difficult to reach by 

' liberal instruction ; and however honest, (and 

^ no doubt most of them are so,) yet, from the 



IMMIGRATION AND NATURALIZATION LAWS. 67 

nature of things, they are but obedient instruments 
in the hands of their more knowing leaders to ac- 
complish the designs of their foreign masters. Re- 
publican education, were it allowed freely to come 
in contact with their minds, would doubtless soon 
furnish a remedy for an evil for which, in the ex- 
isting state of things, we have no cure. It is but 
to continue for a few years the sort of immigration 
that is now daily pouring in its thousands from 
Europe, and our institutions, for aught that I can 
see, are at the mercy of a body of foreigners, offi- 
cered by foreigners, and held completely under 
the control of a foreign power. We may then have 
reason to say that we are the dupes of our own 
hospitality ; we have sheltered in our well provid- 
ed house a needy body of strangers, who, well 
filled with our cheer, are encouraged, by the unac- 
customed familiarity with which they are treated, 
first to upset the regulations of the household, and 
then to turn their host and his family out of doors. 



CHAPTER VI. 



The evil from immigration further considered— Its political 
bearings— The influence of emigrants at the elections— 
This influence concentrated in the priests— The priests 
must be propitiated— By what means— This influence 
easily purchased by the demagogue— The unprincipled 
character of many of our politicians favor this foreign at- 
tack—Their bargain for the suffrages of this priest-led 
band— A church and state party— The Protestant sects 
obnoxious to no such bargaining— The newspaper press 
favors this foreign attack— From its want of independence 
and its timidity— An anti-republican fondness for titles 
favors this foreign attack— Cautious attempts of Popery 
to dignify its emissaries and to accustom us to their high- 
sounding titles— A mistaken notion on the subject of dis- 
cussing religious opinion in the secular journals favors 
this foreign attack— Political designs not to be shielded 
from attack because cloked by religion. 

I will continue the consideration of some of 
the points in our political system, of which the fo- 
reign conspirators take advantage in their attacks 
on our liberties. We have seen that from the na- 
ture of the case the emigrant Catholics general- 
ly are shamefully illiterate, and without opinions 
of their own. They are and must be under th a 
direction of their priests. The press, with its 'ar- 
guments for or against any political measure* can 

6* f ' 



70 EMIGRANTS CONTROLLED BT PRIESTS. 

have no effect on minds taught only to think as the 
priest thinks, and to do what the priest commands. 
Here is a large body of ignorant men brought into 
our community who are unapproachable by any 
of the ordinary means of enlightening the people — 
a body of men who servilely obey a set of priests 
imported from abroad, bound to the country by 
none of the usual ties, owing allegiance and ser- 
vice to a foreign government, depending on that 
government for promotion and reward, and this re- 
ward too depends on the manner in which they 
discharge the duties prescribed to them by their fo- 
reign master ; which is, doubtless for the present, 
to confine themselves simply and wholly to increas- 
ing the number of their sect and the influence of the 
Pope in this country. It is men thus officered and 
of such a character that we have placed in all re- 
spects on a level, at our elections, with the same 
number of native patriotic and intelligent citizens. 
The Jesuits are fully aware of the advantage 
they derive from this circumstance. They know 
that a body of men admitted to citizenship, un- 
learned in the true nature of American liberty, ex- 
ercising the elective franchise, totally uninfluenced 
>y the ordinary methods of reasoning, but passive- 
obedient only to the commands of their priests, 
t give those priests great consequence in the 



HOW PRIESTS ARE PROPITIATED. 71 

eyes of the leaders of political parties ; they know 
that these leaders must esteem it very important 
that the priests be propitiated. And how is a 
Catholic priest to be propitiated ? How, but by 
stipulating for that which will increase his power 
or the power of the church, for be it always borne 
in mind that they are identical. The Roman 
church is the body of priests and prelates ; the lai- 
ty have only to obey and to pay, not to exercise 
authority. The priest must be favored in his plans 
of destroying Protestantism, and building up Po- 
pery. He must have money from the public trea- 
sury to endow Catholic institutions ; he must be al- 
lowed to have charters for these institutions which 
will confer extraordinary powers upon their Jesuit 
trustees ;* he must be permitted quietly to break 
down the Protestant Sabbath, by encouraging 
Catholics to buy and sell on that day as on 
other days ; in, one word, he must have all the 
powers and privileges which the law, or the officers 
appointed to administer the law, can conveniently 
bestow upon him. The demagogue or the party 
who will promise to do most for the accomplishment 
of these objects will secure all the votes which he 
controls. Surely there is great danger to our pre- 
sent institutions from this source, and men as skill- 

* See note G- 



72 UNPRINCIPLED CHARACTER OF POLITICIANS. 

ful as are the Jesuits we may be sure will not fail 
to use the power thus thrown into their hands to 
work great mischief to the republic. 

The recklessness and unprincipled character of 
too many of our politicians give a great advantage 
to these conspirators. There is a set of men in 
the country who will have power and office, cost 
what they may ; men who, without a particle of 
true patriotism, will yet ring the changes on the 
glory and honor of their country, talk loud of liber- 
ty, flatter the lowest prejudices, and fawn upon the 
powerful and the influential ; men who study poli- 
tics only, that they may balance the chances of 
their own success in falling in with or opposing 
this or that fluctuating interest, without caring 
whether that interest tends to the security or the 
downfall of their country's institutions. To such 
politicians a body of men thus drilled by priests 
presents a well fitted tool. The bargain with the 
priest will be easily struck. u Give me office, and 
I will take care of the interests of your church." 
The effect of the bargain upon the great moral or 
political interests of the country will not for a mo- 
ment influence the calculation. Thus we have 
among us a body of men, a religious sect, who can 
exercise a direct controlling influence in the poli- 
tics of the country, and can be moved together in 



OUR PRESS NOT INDEPENDENT. 73 

a solid phalanx ; we have a church interfering di- 
rectly and most poioerfully in the affairs of state. 
There is not in the whole country a parallel to 
this among the other sects. What clergyman 
of the Methodists, or Baptists, or Episcopalians, 
or of any other denomination, could command the 
votes of the members of their several congrega- 
tions in the election of an individual to political 
office ? The very idea of such power is prepos- 
terous to a Protestant. No freeman, no man ac- 
customed to judge for himself, would submit even 
to be advised, unasked, by his minister in a mat- 
ter of this kind, much less dictated to. 

Connected with these evils, and assisting to in- 
crease them, we have a Press to an alarming ex- 
tent wanting in independence. Most of our jour- 
nals^are avowedly attached to a particular party, or 
to particular individuals. They are like counsel re- 
tained for a particular cause ; they are to say every 
thing that makes in favor of their client, and con- 
ceal every thing that makes against him. Does a 
question of principle arise, of fundamental impor- 
tance to the country 1 — the inquiry with a journal 
thus pledged is not, how are our free institutions, 
how is the country affected by the decision, but 
how will the decision affect the interests of our 
particular party or favorite ? How few are there 



74 ANTI-REPUBLICAN FONDNESS FOR TITLES. 

among our newspaper editors who dare to take a 
manly stand for or against a principle that affects 
vitally the constitution, if it is found to bear unfa- 
vorably upon their party or their candidate ! A 
press thus wanting in magnanimity and indepen- 
dence is the fit instrument for advancing the pur- 
poses of unprincipled men ; and editors of this 
stamp — and they are confined to no particular par- 
ty — whether they have followed out their conduct 
or not to its legitimate results, can easily be made 
the tools of a despot to subvert the liberties of their 
country. 

Again we have, still unsubdued, some weak- 
nesses, (perhaps they belong to human nature,) of 
which advantage may be taken to the injury of our 
republican character and in aid of despotism, and 
which may seem to some too trivial to merit no- 
tice in connection with the more serious matters 
just considered. One of these weaknesses is an 
anti-republican fondness for titles;* and whoever 
has lived in the old world, and knows the extraor- 
dinary and powerful influence which mere titles of 
honor exercise over the minds of men, and their 
tendency to keep in due subjection the artificial 
ranks into which despotic and aristocratic power 
divide the people, subduing the lower orders to 

* See note H. 



INFLUENCE OF TITLES. 75 

iheir lords and masters, will not think it amiss in 
this place to draw attention to the subject. Repub- 
licans as we are, I fear we are influenced in a 
greater degree than we are aware by the high 
sounding epithets with which despotism and aris- 
tocracy surround their officers, to awe into reve- 
rence the ignorant multitude. A name having half 
a dozen titles for its avant couriers, and as many 
for its rear guard, swells into an importance even 
in the estimation of our citizens, v/hich the name 
alone, and especially the individual himself, could 
never assume. Let Mr. Brown or Mr. Smith, or 
any other intelligent, upright, active citizen, be 
elected president of a benevolent society, does he 
excite the gaze of those who meet him, or inspire 
awe in the multitude 1 No one regards him but 
as a respectable, useful member of the community. 
But let us learn that a gentleman, not half as intel- 
ligent, or upright, or active, is to land in our city, 
who is announced as the " Most Illustrious Arch- 
duke and Eminence his Imperial Highness the 
Cardinal and Archbishop of Olmutz, Rodolph, 
(this last is the gentleman's real name,) Highest 
Curator of the Leopold Foundation," and although 
not half as capable in any respect as Mr. Brown 
or Mr. Smith, or ten thousand other honest un- 
titled citizens among us, I very much fear that the 



76 YITLE3 A GLOSS TO CHARACTER, 

Battery would be thronged, and the windows in 
Broadway would be in demand, and the streets 
filled with a gaping crowd to see a man who could 
have such a mighty retinue of glittering epithets 
about him. Yet this title-blazoned gentleman 
holds the same office as Mr. Brown or Mr. Smith* 
Poor human nature ! Alas for its weakness !* 

Who is not struck with the difference of effect 
upon the imagination when we describe a person 

thus : " Mr. , a good hearted old gentleman, 

rather weak in the head, ivho finds in the manufac** 
ture of sealing-wax one of the chief and most agree- 
able employments of his time;" and when we should 
describe a man thus : 4C His Imperial Majesty 
Francis I. Emperor of Austria, King oj Jeru- 
salem, Hungary, Bohemia, of Lombardy and Ve- 
nice, Dalmatia, Croatia, Sclavonia, Galizia and 
Lodomiria, Archduke of Austria, Duke ofLorena, 
Salsburg, Slyria, Carinthia, and Carniola, Grand 
Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravian 
Count Prince of Hapsburg and Tyrol," &c. &c. 
— and yet these two descriptions belong to one 
and the same individual. 

There used to be a sound democratic feeling in 

* There is reason to believe we are reforming in this par- 
ticular, for we have now titled foreigners, respectable men, 
travelers in the country, and our press no longer lends it- 
nelf to announce their unimportant presence or movement*. 



POPEItT CAUTIOUSLY INTRODUCING THEM- 17 

the country, which spurned such glosses of cha- 
racter and frowned out of use mere glory-giving 
title, Austria, however, is gradually (as fast as it 
is thought safe) introducing these titled gentlemen 
into the country. Bishop Fenwick, a Catholic 
priest, is " his Grace of Cincinnati ;" Mr. Vicar- 
General Rese, another priest, is only " his Reve- 
rence ;" and Bishop Flaget, and all the other Bi- 
shops, are simple Monseigneurs, this title in & fo- 
reign language being less harsh at present to re- 
publican ears than its plump aristocratic English 
translation, "My Lord Bishop of Neiv-York," 
" My Lord Bishop of Boston," "My Lord Bishop 
of Charleston," &c. &c. &c. As we improve, how- 
ever, under Catholic instruction, we may come to 
be quite reconciled even to his Eminence Cardinal 
so and so, and to all the other graduated fooleries 
which are so well adapted to dazzle the ignorant. 
The scarlet carriage of a Cardinal, too, bedizen- 
ed with gold, and containing the sacred person of 
some Jesuit, all scarlet and humility, as is at this 
day often seen in Rome, may yet excite our admi- 
ration as it rolls through our streets; and even a 
Pope, (for in these republican times in Italy, who 
knows but his Holiness may have leave of ab- 
sence,) yes, even a Pope, a Vicegerent of God 9 
the great divinely appointed appointer of Rulers 

7 



£8 THE POLITICAL, NOT RELIGIOUS 

the very center from which all titles emanate, may 
possibly in his scarlet and gold and jewel-decked 
equipage astonish our eyes, and prostrate us on 
our knees as he moves down Broadway. To be 
sure some of his republican friends, now in strange 
holy alliance with his faithful subjects here, might 
find their Protestant knees at first a little stiff, yet 
the Catholic schools, which they are encouraging 
with their votes and their money and their influ- 
ence, will soon furnish them good instructors in 
the art of reverential gesture and genuflexion. 

Again, there are some minds of a peculiarly 
sensitive cast, that cannot bear to have the subject 
of religious opinion mooted in any way in the se- 
cular journals. They use a plausible argument 
that satisfies them, namely, that religion is too sa- 
cred a subject to be discussed by the daily press. 
I agree to a certain extent, and in a modified sense, 
with this sentiment ; but it should be remembered 
that all is not religion which passes under that 
name. The public safety makes it necessary 
sometimes to strip off the disguise, and show the 
true character of a design which may have assum- 
ed the sacred cloke, the better to pass unchal- 
lenged by just such feeble-hearted objectors. 
Were such objections valid, how easy would it be 
for the most dangerous political designs (as in the 



CHARACTER OF POPERY HERE DISCUSSED. 79 

case we are considering) to assume a religious 
garb, and so escape detection. The exposure I 
am now making of the foreign designs upon our 
liberties, may possibly be mistaken for an attack 
on the Religion of the Catholics ; yet I have not 
meddled with the conscience of any Catholic; if 
he honestly believes the doctrine of Transubstan- 
tiation, or that by doing penance he will prepare 
himself for heaven, or in the existence of Purga- 
tory, or in the efficacy of the prayers and masses 
of priests to free the souls of his relatives from 
its flames, or that it is right to worship the Fir gin 
JVEary, or to pray to Saints or keep holy days, or to 
refrain from meat at certain times, or to go on pil- 
grimages, or in the virtue of relics, or that none but 
Catholics can be saved, or many other points ; how- 
ever wrong I may and do think him to be, it is fo- 
reign from the design of these chapters to speak 
against them. But when he proclaims to the world 
that all power temporal as well as spiritual exists 
in the Pope, (denying of course the fundamental 
doctrine of republicanism,) that liberty of con- 
science is a "raving," and "most pestilential error," 
that " he execrates and detests the liberty of the 
press ; n when his intolerant creed asserts that no 
faith is to be kept with heretics, (all being heretics 
in the creed of a Catholic who are not Catholics,) 



SO NOT TO BE SHIELDED BY A RELIGIOUS CLOKE. 

and many other palpable anti-republican as well as 
immoral doctrines, he has then blended with his 
creed political tenets that vitally affect the very 
existence of our government, and no association 
with religious belief shall shield them from obser- 
vation and rebuke. It would indeed be singular if 
these mere " ravings," (the Pope's phrase is ap- 
propriate here,) subversive of the fundamental 
principles of our government, should be shielded 
from exposure because misnamed religion. If in- 
cendiaries or robbers should ensconce themselves 
within a church, from the windows and towers of 
which they were assailing the people, the cry of 
sacrilege shall not prevent us from attempts to dis- 
lodge them, though the walls which protect them 
should suffer in the conflict. 



CHAPTER VII. 



The political character of the ostensibly religious enter 
prise proved from the letters of the Jesuits now in this 
country— Their antipathy to private judgment— Their an- 
ticipations of a change of our form of government— Our 
government declared too free for the exercise of their di- 
vine rights— Their political partialities— Their cold ac- 
knowledgment of the generosity, and liberality, and hos- 
pitality of our government— Their estimate of our con- 
dition contrasted with their estimate of that of Austria— 
Their acknowledged allegiance and servility to a foreign 
master— Their sympathies with the oppressor, aad not 

1 with the oppressed— Their direct avowal of political 
intention. 

Let me next show the political character of 
this ostensibly religious effort, from the sentiments 
of the Austrian emissaries expressed to their fo- 
reign patrons. The very nature of a conspiracy of 
this kind precludes the possibility of much direct 
evidence of political design ; for Jesuit cunning 
and Austrian duplicity would be sure to tread with 
unusual caution on American ground. Yet if I can 
quote from their correspondence some expressions 
of antipathy to our free principles and to the go- 
vernment; some hinting at the subversion of the go- 
vernment ; prevailing partialities for arbitrary go- 
vernment ; and siding with tyranny against the 
oppressed; and some acknowledgments o/pouti- 

7* 



8% PROOFS OF POLITICAL DESIGN, 

cal effects to be expected J rom the operations of 
the society, I shall have exhibited evidence enough 
to put every citizen, who values his birthright, up- 
on the strict watch of these men and their adhe- 
rents, and to show the importance of some mea- 
sures of repelling this insidious invasion of the 
country. 

The Bishop 'of Baltimore, writing to the Aus- 
trian Society, laments the wretched state of the 
Catholic religion in Virginia, and as a proof of the 
difficulty it has to contend with, (a proof doubtless 
shocking to the pious docility of his Austrian 
readers,) he says : 

" I sent to Richmond a zealous missionary, a 
native of America. He traveled through the whole 
of Virginia. The Protestants flocked on all sides 
to hear him ; they offered him their churches, 
court-houses, and other public buildings, to preach 
in — which however is not at all surprising, for the 
people are divided into numerous sects, and know 
not what faith to embrace. In consequence of 
being spoiled by bad instruction, they ivill judge 
every thing themselves ; they therefore hear eager- 
ly every new comer," &c. 

The Bishop, if he had the power, would of 
course change this " bad instruction]" for better, 
and, as in Catholic countries, would relieve them 



1 FROM THE LETTERS OF THE JESUITS. S3 

from the trouble of judging for themselves. Thus 
the liberty of private judgment and freedom of opi- 
nion, guaranteed by our institutions, are avowedly 
an obstacle to the success of the Catholics. Is it 
not natural that Catholics should desire to remove 
this obstacle out of their way ?* 

My Lord Bishop Flaget, of Bardstown, Ken- 
tucky, in a letter to his patrons abroad, has this 
plain hint at an ulterior political design, and that 
no less than the entire subversion of our republican 
government. Speaking of the difficulties and dis- 
couragements the Catholic missionaries have to 
contend with in converting the Indians, the last 
difficulty in the way he says, is " their continual 
traffic among the whites, which cannot be hin- 
dered as long as the republican govern- 
ment SHALL SUBSIST ! ? ' 

* A Catholic journai of this city (the Register and Diary) 
was put into my hands as I had completed this last para- 
graph. It contains the same sentiment, so illustrative of the 
natural abhorrence of Catholics to the exercise of private 
judgment that I cannot forbear quoting it. 

" We seriously advise Catholic parents to be very cau- 
tious in the choice of school-books for their children. There 
is more danger^to be apprehended in this quarter than 
could be conceived. Parents, we are aware, have not al- 
ways the time or patience to examine these matters : but 
if they trust implicitly to us, we shall, with God's help, do it 
for them, Legimus ne legantur" We read, that they may not 
read ! ! 

How kind ! they will save parents all the trouble of judg- 
ing for themselves, but "we must be trusted implicitly /" 
Would a Protestant journal thus dare to take liberties with 
its readers ? 



84 PROOFS CONTINUED. 

What is this but saying that a republican go- 
vernment is unfavorable in its nature to the restric- 
tions we deem necessary to the extension of the 
Catholic religion ; when the time shall come that 
the present government shall be subverted, which 
we are looking forward to, or hope for, we can then 
hinder this traffic ? 

Mr. Baraga, the German missionary in Michi- 
gan, seems impressed with the same conviction of 
the unhappy influence of a free government upon 
his attempts to make converts to the church of 
Rome. In giving an account of the refusal of some 
persons to have their children baptized, he lays the 
fault on this "too free (allzu freien) govern- 
ment." In a more despotic government, in Italy 
or Austria, he would have been able to put in force 
compulsory baptism on these children.* 

These few extracts are quite sufficient to show 
how our form of government, which gives to the 
Catholics all the freedom and facilities that other 
sects enjoy, does from its very nature embarrass 
their despotic plans. Accustomed to dictate at 
home, how annoying it is to these Austrian eccle- 
siastics to be obliged to put off their authority, to 
yield their divine right of judging for others, to be 
compelled to get at men through their reason and 

* See note I. 



POLITICAL PARTIALITIES OF THE JESUITS. 85 

conscience, instead of the more summary way of 
compulsion ! The disposition to use force if they 
could, shows itself in spite of all their caution,. 
The inclination is there. It is reined in by circum- 
stances. They want only strength to act out the 
inherent despotism of Popery. 

But let me show what are some of the political 
partialities which these foreign emissaries disco- 
ver in their letters and statements to their Austrian 
supporters. They acknowledge their unsuspicious 
reception by the people of the United States ; they 
acknowledge that Protestants in all parts of the 
country have even aided them with money to build 
their chapels and colleges and nunneries, and 
treated them with liberality and hospitality, and — 
strange infatuation ! ! — have been so monstrously 
foolish as to intrust their children to them to be 
educated ! so infatuated as to confide in their ho- 
nor and in their promises that they would use no 
attempts to proselyte them ! And with all this, 
does it not once occur to these gentlemen, that this 
liberality, and generosity, and openness of charac- 
ter are the fruits of Protestant republicanism 1 
Might we not expect at least that Popery, were it 
republican in its nature, would find something in 
all this that would excite admiration, and call forth 
tome praise of a system so contrasted to that of 



86 THEIR ABUSE OF THIS COUNTRY. 

any other government ; some acknowledgments 
to the government of the country that protects it, 
and allows its emissaries the unparalleled liberty 
even to plot the downfall of the state ? But no, the 
government of the United States is not once men- 
tioned in praise. The very principle of the govern- 
ment, through which they are tolerated, is thus 
slightingly noticed : " The government of the 
United States has thought fit to adopt a complete 
indifference towards all religions."* They can re- 
cognize no nobler principle than indifference. 

Again, of the people of our country they thus 
write : " We entreat all European Christians to 
unite in prayer to God for the conversion of these 
unhappy heathen and obstinate heretics" We 
are spoken of as a country " on which the light 
of faith has hitherto not shined." "A vast coun- 
try y destitute of all spiritual and temporal re- 
sources." But if Austria is mentioned, what are 
the terms ? " Your Society, (the Leopold Foun- 
dation,) which is an ornament to the illustrious 
Austrian Empire" — " the noble and generous 
inhabitants of the Austrian empire." 4 ' Of many 
circumstances in our condition, few perhaps in 
your happy empire can form a correct notion ;" 
and again, " Here are many churches, if you may 

. * Quart. Regist. Feb. 1830, p. 198. 



THEIR SERVILITY TO AUSTRIA. S7 

so call the miserable wooden buildings, differing 
little from the barns of your happy land /" Aus- 
tria,, happy land ! ! How enthusiastic, too, is ano- 
ther Bishop, who writes, " we cannot sufficiently 
praise our good Emperor (of Austria,) were we 
to extol him to the third heaven /" Such are the 
political partialities which are discovered in va- 
rious parts of these documents. Are they in favor 
of our republican darkness, and heathenism, and 
misery, or of Austrian light, and piety and hap- 
piness ? 

In the struggles of the European people for 
their liberty, do these foreign teachers sympathize 
with the oppressor or with the oppressed ? " France 
no more helps us, " (Charles X. had just been de- 
throned,) " and Rome, beset by enemies to the 
church aud public order, is not in a condition to 
help us." And who are these men stigmatized as 
enemies of public order ? They are the Italian 
patriots of the Revolution of 1831, than whom 
our own country in the perils of its own revolu- 
tion did not produce men more courageous, more 
firm, more wise, more tolerant, more patriotic ; 
men who had freed their country from the bonds 
of despotism in a struggle almost bloodless, for 
the people were with them : men who, in the spirit 
of American patriots, were organizing a free go- 



88 OTHER DESPOTS INTERESTED IN THE ENTERPRISE, 

vernment, rectifying the abuses of Papal misrule^ 
and who, in a few weeks of their power, had ac- 
complished years of benefit. These are the men 
afterwards dragged to death or to prison by Aus- 
trian intruders, and styled by our Jesuits, enemies 
of public order! Austria herself uses the self- 
same terms to stigmatize those who resist op- 
pression. 

I will notice one extract more, to which I would 
call the special attention of my readers. It is 
from one of the reports of the society in Lyons^ 
which society had the principal management of 
American missions under Charles X. When this 
bigoted monarch was dethroned, and liberal prin- 
ciples reigned in France y the society so languish- 
ed that Austria took the design more completely 
into her own hands, and through the Leopold 
Foundation she has the enterprise now under her 
more immediate guardianship. 

" Our beloved king (Charles X.) has given the 
society his protection, and has enrolled his name 
as a subscriber. Our society has also made rapid 
progress in the neighboring states of Piedmont 
and Savoy. The pious rulers of those lands, and 
the chief ecclesiastics, have given it a friendly re- 
ception. " 

Charles X. be it noticed? and the despotic ru- 



POLITICAL EFFECTS DIRECTLY AVOWED, 89 

lers of Piedmont and Savoy, took a special in- 
terest in this American enterprise. The report 
goes on to say — 

" Who can doubt that an institution which has 
a purely spiritual aim, whose only object is the 
conversion of souls, desires nothing less than to 
make whole nations, on whom the light of faith 
has hitherto not shined, partakers of the know- 
ledge of the Gospel ; an institution solemnly sanc- 
tioned by the supreme head of the church : which, 
as w r e have already remarked, enjoys the protec- 
tion of our pious monarch, the support of arch- 
bishops and bishops ; an institution established in 
a city under the inspection of officers, at whose 
head stands the great almoner, and which num- 
bers among its members men alike honorable for 
their rank in church and state ; an institution of 
which his excellency the minister of church af- 
fairs lately said, in his place in the Chamber of 
Deputies, that, independent of its purely spiri- 
tual design, it was of great political in- 
terest." 

Observe that great pains arefhere taken to im- 
press upon the public mind the purely spiritual 
aim, the purely spiritual design of the society ; 
and yet one of the French ministers, in the Cham- 
ber of Deputies, states directly that it has another 

8 



90 AVOWAL OF A FRENCH MINISTER* 

design, and that it was of " great political in- 
terest." He gives some of these political ob- 
jects — " because it planted the French name in 
distant countries, caused it, by the mild influence 
of our missionaries, to be loved and honored, and 
thus opened to our trade and industry useful chan- 
nels," &c. Now, if some political effects are 
already avowed as intended to be produced by 
this society, and that, too, immediately after reite- 
rating its purely spiritual design, why may not 
that particular political effect be also intended? 
of far more importance to the interests of despot- 
ism, namely, the subversion of our Republican 
institutions f 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Some of the means by which Jesuits can already operate 
politically in the country— By mob discipline—By priest 
police— Their great danger— Already established— Proofs 
— Priests already rule the mob— Nothing in the principles 
of Popery to prevent its interference in our elections- 
Popery interferes at the present day in the politics of 
other countries — Popery the same in our country— It in- 
terferes in our elections— In Michigan— In Charleston, 
S. C — In New- York— Popery a political despotism clok- 
ed under the name of Religion — It is Church and State 
embodied — Its character at head-quarters in Italy— Its 
political character stripped of its religious cloke. 

But some of my readers, notwithstanding they 
may be convinced that it is for the interest of des- 
potism to subvert our institutions, and are even 
persuaded that this grand enterprize has been ac- 
tually undertaken, may be inclined to ask in what 
manner can the despots of Europe effect, by 
means of Popish emissaries, any thing in this 
country to counteract the influence of our liberal 
institutions 1 In what way can they operate here ? 

With the necessity existing' of doing some- 
thing, from the instinct of self preservation, to 
check the influence of our free institutions on Eu- 
rope, with the funds provided, and agents on the 
spot interested in their plans, one would think it 



92 COMPOSITION OF MOBS. 

needed but little sagacity to find modes and oppor- 
tunities of operating, especially, too, when such 
vulnerable points as I have exposed (and there 
are many more which I have not brought forward) 
invite attack. 

To any such inquirers let me say there are 
many ways in which a body organized as are the 
Catholics, and moving in concert, might disturb 
(to use the mildest term) the good order of the re- 
public, and thus compel us to present to observing 
Europe the spectacle of republican anarchy. Who 
is not aware that a great portion of that stuff which 
composes a mob, ripe for riot or excess of any 
kind, and of which we have every week or two a 
fresh example in some part of the country, is a 
Catholic* population ? and what makes it turbu- 
lent ? Ignorance, an ignorance which it is for the 
interest of its leaders not to enlighten ; for, en- 
lighten a man and he will think for himself, and 
have some self-respect ; he will understand the 
laws and know his interest in obeying them. Keep 
him in ignorance, and he is the slave of the man 
who will flatter his passions and appetites, or awe 
him by superstitious fears. Against the outbreak- 

* At the time this was written, riots in this country were 
almost entirely confined to the emigrants from foreign 
countries employed as laborers on our rail-roads, ca- 
nals, &c. 



PRIEST POLICE. 9$ 

lugs of such men, society, as it is constituted on 
our free system, can protect itself only in one of 
two ways : it must either bring these men under 
the influence and control of a sound republican 
and religious education, or it must call in the aid 
of the priests who govern them, and who may 
permit and direct or restrain their turbulence, 
in accordance with what they may judge at any 
particular time to be the interest of the church. 
Yes, be it well remarked, the same hands that can, 
whenever it suits their interest, restrain,, can also, 
at the proper time, " let slip the dogs of war" 
In this mode of restraint by a police of priests, by 
substituting the ecclesiastical for the civil power, 
the priest-led mobs of Portugal and Spain, and 
South America, are instructive examples. And 
start not, American reader, this kind of police is 
already established in our country ! We have 
had mobs again and again, which neither the civil 
nor military power have availed any , thing to 
quell, until the magic "peace, be still" of the Ca- 
tholic priest has hushed the winds and calmed 
the waves of popular tumult.* While I write, what 
mean the negociations between two Irish bands 
of emigrants in hostile array against each other, 
shedding each other's blood upon our soil, settling 
* See note J. 



94 RECENT EXERCISE OF ITS POWER. 

with the bayonet miserable foreign feuds which 
they have brought over the waters with them ? 
Why have not the civil and military power been 
able to restore order among them and obedience 
to our laws, without calling in the priests to ne- 
gociate and settle the terms on which they will 
cease from violating our laws ?* Have the priests 
become necessary in our political system ? Have 

'* As our readers have probably forgotten the particulars 
of the affair here alluded to, we subjoin, from the Journal of 
Commerce, a copy of the agreement subscribed by the lead- 
ers of the riot. The civil and military authorities of Mary- 
land had tried repeatedly, but in vain, to quell the rioters. 
—Ed. Obs. 

From the Journal of Commerce. 

The Rioters. — It appears by the following notice, that 
the rioters on the Baltimore and Washington Rail-road 
have concluded a treaty of peace, through the intervention 
of a priest. There was considerable talk during the late 
riots in this city, of calling in the agency of the priests to 
put an end to the disturbance. No doubt it would have 
been effectual. 

AGREEMENT. 

On the 24th of June, 1834, the subscribers, in the pre- 
sence of the Rev. John McElroy, have respectively and mu- 
tually agreed to bury for ever, on their own part, and on be- 
half of their respective sections of country, all remem- 
brance of feuds and animosities, as well as injuries sustain- 
ed. They also promise to each other, and make a sincere 
tender of their intention to preserve peace, harmony, and 
good feeling between persons of every part of their native 
country without distinction. 

They further mutually agree to exclude from their 
houses and premises all disorderly persons of every kind, 
and particularly habitual drunkards. They are also resolv- 
ed, and do intend to apply, in all cases where it is necessary, 
to the civil authorities, or to the laws of the country for re- 
dress—and finally, they are determined to use their utmost 
endeavors to enforce, by word and example, these their 
unanimous resolutions. 



POPERY INTERFERES IN FOREIGN POLITICS. 95 

the emissaries of a foreign despotic power stolen 
this march upon us ? Can they tell their foreign 
masters, w we already rule the mob ?" Yes, and 
facts will bear them out in their boasting.* 

And what now prevents the interference of 
Catholics, as a sect, directly in the political elec- 
tions of the country ? They are organized under 
their priests : is there any thing in their religious 
principles to restrain them ? Do not Catholics of 
the present day use the bonds of religious union 
to effect political objects in other countries ? Did 
not the Pope interfere in Poland in the late revo- 
lution, and, through the priests, command submis- 
sion to the tyranny of the Czar ? At the moment I 
am writing, are not monks and priests leaders in 
the field of battle in Spain ; in Portugal ? Is not 
the Pope encouraging the troops of Don Miguel, 
and exciting priests and people to arms in a civil 
contest? Has Popery abandoned its ever-busy 
meddling in the politics of the countries where it 
obtains foothold ?| 

Will it be said, that however officious in the old 
countries, yet here, by some strange metamorpho- 

Signed by fourteen of the men employed) nn ^l^^^i 
on the 4th, 5th, and 8th sections of the > °° „„,*" °i 
2d division, B. and VV. R. R. > employed. 

And also by thirteen of the 8th section of ) on behalf of all 
the 1st division. > employed. 

' See note K. t See note L. 



96 POPERY INTERFERES IN FOREIGN POLITICS, 

sis, Popery has changed its character, and is mo- 
dified by our institutions ; that here it is surely re- 
ligious, seeking only the religious welfare of the 
people, that it does not meddle with the state ?* 
It is not true that Popery meddles not with the po- 
litics of the country. The cloven foot has already 
shown itself. Popery is organized at the elec- 
tions ! For example : in Michigan, the Bishop 
Richard, a Jesuit, (since deceased,) was several 
times chosen delegate to Congress from the Ter- 
ritory, the majority of the people being Catholics. 
As Protestants became more numerous, the con- 
test between the bishop and his Protestant rival 
was more and more close, until at length, by the 
increase of Protestant immigration, the latter tri- 
umphed. The bishop, in order to detect any delin- 
quency in his flock at the polls, had his ticket 
printed on colored paper; whether any were so 
mutinous as not to vote according to orders, or 
what penance was inflicted for disobedience, I did 
not learn. The fact of such a truly Jesuitical mode 
of espionage I have from a gentleman resident at 
that time in Detroit. Is not a fact like this of some 
importance ? Does it not show that Popery, with 
all its speciousness, is the same here as else- 
where ? It manifests, when it has the opportunity, 
# See note M. 



POPERY A POLITICAL SYSTEM, CLOKED BY RELIGION. 97 

i 

its genuine disposition to use spiritual power for 
the promotion of its temporal ambition. It uses its 
ecclesiastical weapons to control an election. 

In Charleston, S. C. the Roman Catholic Bi- 
shop England is said to have boasted of the num- 
ber of votes that he could control at an election. 
I have been informed on authority which cannot 
be doubted, that in New- York, a priest, in a late 
election for city officers, stopped his congregation 
after mass on Sunday and urged the electors not 
to vote for a particular candidate, on the ground 
of his being an anti-Catholic ; the result was the 
election of the Catholic candidate. 

It is unnecessary to multiply facts of this nature, 
nor will it be objected that these instances are un- 
worthy of notice, because of their local or circum- 
scribed character. Surely American Protestants, 
freemen, have discernment enough to discover be- 
neath them the cloven foot of this subtle foreign 
heresy, and will not wait for a more extensive, dis- 
astrous, and overwhelming political interference, 
ere they assume the attitude of watchfulness and 
defence. They will see that Popery is now, what 
it has ever been, a svstem of the darkest political 
intrigue and despotism, cloking itself, to avoid at- 
tack, under the sacred name of religion. They will 
be deeply impressed with the truth, that Popery is 



$3 ITS CHARACTER AT HEAD-QU ARTE US. 

a political as well as a religious system ; that in 
this respect it differs totally from all other sects, 
from all other forms of religion in the country. 
Popery embodies in itself the closest union 
of Church and State. Observe it at the foun- 
tain-head. In the Roman States the civil and ec- 
clesiastical offices are blended together in the 
same individual. The Pope is the King. A Car-* 
dinal is Secretary of State. The Consistory of 
Cardinals is the Cabinet Council, the Ministry, 
and they are Viceroys in the provinces. The 
Archbishops are Ambassadors to foreign courts. 
The Bishops are Judges and Magistrates ; and 
the road to preferment to most if not all the great 
offices of state is through the priesthood. In Rome 
and the patrimony of St. Peter the temporal and 
spiritual powers are so closely united in the same 
individual, that no attack can be made on any 
temporal misrule without drawing down upon the 
assailants the vengeance of the spiritual power 
exercised by the same individual. Is the Judge 
corrupt or oppressive, and do the people rise 
against him — the Judge retires into the Bishop, 
and in his sacred retreat cries " Touch not the 
Lord's anointed." 

Can we not discern the political character of 
Popery] Shall the name of Religion, artfully 



STRIPPED OP ITS RELIGIOUS CLOKE. 99 

connected with it, still blind our eyes ? Let us 
suppose a body of men to combine together, and 
claim as their right, that all public and private 
property, of whatever kind, is held at their dis- 
posal ; that they alone are to judge of their own 
right to dispose of it ; that they alone are au- 
thorized to think or speak on the subject ; that 
they who speak or write in opposition to them 
are traitors, and must be put to death ; that all 
temporal power is secondary to theirs, and ame- 
nable to their superior and infallible judgment ; 
and the better to hide the presumption of these ty- 
rannical claims, suppose that these men should 
pretend to divine right and call their system Re- 
ligion, and so claim the protection of our laws, 
and pleading conscience, demand to be tolerated. 
Would the name of Religion, be a cloke sufficient- 
ly thick to hide such absurdity, and shield it from 
public indignation ? Take then, from Popery its 
name of Religion strip its officers of their pompous 
titles of sacredness, and its decrees of the nause- 
ous cant of piety* and what have you remaining ? 
Is it not a naked, odious Despotism, depending 
for its strength on the observance of the strictest 
military discipline in its ranks, from the Pope, 

* Through the Leopold Foundation reports there is this 
perpetual cant of piety : We have "pious prelate," "pious 
purpose," "pious end," u pious curiosity," "pious dread," 
and even "pious progress," and "pious dress." 



100 ILLUSTRATION OF THE RELIGIOUS DISGUISE OF POPERY. 

through his Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, &c. 
down to the lowest priest of his dominions 1 And 
is not this despotism acting politically in this 
country ? 

Let us suppose, for the sake of illustration, that 
the Emperor of Russia, in a conceited dream of di- 
vine right to universal empire, should parcel out our 
country into convenient districts, and should pro- 
claim his intention to exercise his rightful sway over 
these States, now not owning his control ; should 
we not justly laugh at his ridiculous pretensions ? 
But suppose he should proceed to appoint his 
Viceroys, Grand Imperial Dukes, giving to one 
the title of " his Grace of Albany" to another 
the " Grand Duke of Washington" and to ano- 
ther "his Imperial Highness of Savannah" 
and should send them out to take possession of 
their districts, and subdue the people as fast as 
practicable to their proper obedience to his legiti- 
mate sway ; and should these pompous Viceroys, 
with their train of sub-officers, actually come over 
from Russia, and erect their government houses, 
and commence,by compliant manners and fair pro- 
mises to procure lands and rentals to hold in the 
power of the Emperor, and under the guise of edu- 
cating the rising generation should begin to sap the 
foundations of their attachment to this government, 
by blinding their reasoning faculties, and by the 



ILLUSTRATION CONTINUED. 101 

Russian catechism instilling the doctrine of pas- 
sive obedience and the divine right of the Em- 
peror ; what should we say to all this ? Ridiculous 
as the first conceited dream of imperial ambition 
appeared, if matters got to this pass, we should be- 
gin to think that there was something serious in the 
attempt, and, very properly too, be a little alarmed. 
Suppose then, further, that the Emperor's cause, 
by Russian emigration and the money supplied 
by the Emperor, had become so strong that the 
Viceroys were emboldened in a cautious way to 
try their influence upon some of the local elections ; 
that the Russian party had become a body some- 
what formidable ; that its foreign leaders had their 
passive obedience troops so well under command 
as to make themselves necessary in the police of 
the country ; that we feared to offend them, that 
the secular press favored them* and the un- 
principled courted them ; to what point then, in 
the process of gradually surrendering our liberties 
to the Russian Czar, should we have come ; and 
how near to their accomplishment would be those 
wild dreams of imperial ambition which we had in 
the first instance ridiculed 1 

*Is this a harsh judgment on the secular press ? If a se- 
cular paper ventures to remonstrate against Catholics, is 
not the cry of intolerance or persecution at once raised, and 
the editor scared away from his duty of exposing the secret 
political enemies of the republic, under the false notion 
that he is engaged in a religious controversy 1 a 



102 THE POLITICAL CHARACTER OF POPERY MANIFEST, 

And is this a caricature ? What is the difference 
between the real claims, and efforts, and condi- 
tion of Popery at this moment in these United 
States, and the supposed claims, and efforts, and 
condition of the Russian despotism 1 The one 
comes disguised under the name of Religion, the 
other, more honest and more harmless, would 
come in its real political name. Give the latter 
the name of Religion, call the Emperor, Pope, 
and his Viceroys, Bishops, interlard the imperial 
decrees with pious cant, and you have the case 
of pretension, and intrigue, and success, too, 
which has actually passed in these United States ! 
Yes, the King of Rome, acting by the promptings 
of the Austrian Cabinet, and in the plenitude of 
his usurpation, has already extended his scepter 
over our land ; he has divided us up into provinces, 
and appointed his Viceroys, who claim their juris- 
diction* from a higher power than exists in this 
country, even from his majesty himself, who ap- 
points them, who removes them at will, to whom 
they owe allegiance, for the extension of whose 
temporal kingdom they are exerting themselves, 
and whose success, let it be indelibly impressed 
on your minds, is the certain destruction of the 
free institutions of our country. 

*" Indiana and Illinois, two states depending on my juris- 
diction /" — [My Lord Bishop Flaget's letter.] 



CHAPTER IX. 



Evidence enough of conspiracy adduced to create great 
alarm— The cause of liberty universally demands that we 
should awake to a sense of danger— An attack is made 
which is to try the moral strength of the republic— The 
mode of defence that might be consistently recommended 
by Austrian Popery— A mode now in actual operation in 
Europe— Contrary to the entire spirit of American Protest- 
antism—True mode of defence— Popery must be opposed by 
antagonist institutions— Ignorance must be dispelled— Popu- 
lar ignorance of all Papal countries— Popery the natural 
enemy of general education— Popish efforts to spread educa- 
tion in the United States delusive. 

Is not the evidence I have exhibited in my pre- 
vious numbers sufficiently strong to prove to my 
countrymen the existence of a foreign conspi- 
racy against the liberties of the country ? Does 
the nature of the case admit of stronger evidence ? 
or must we wait for some positive, undisguised 
acts of oppression, before we will believe that we 
are attacked and in danger ? Must we wait for a 
formal declaration of war ? The serpent has al- 
ready commenced his coil about our limbs, and 
the lethargy of his poison is creeping over us ; 
shall we be more sensible of the torpor when it 
has fastened upon our vitals ? The house is on 
fire ; can we not believe it till the flames have 
touched our flesh ? Is not the enemy already orga- 



104 WE MUST WAKE TO A SENSE OF DANGER. 

nized in the land ? Can we not perceive all around 
us the evidence of his presence ? Have not the 
wily manceuverings of despotism already com- 
menced ? Is he not inveigling our children to his 
schools ? Is he not intriguing with the press ? Is 
he not usurping the police of the country, and 
showing his front in our political councils ? Be- 
cause no foe is on the sea, no hostile armies on 
our plains, may we sleep securely ? Shall we 
watch only on the outer walls, while the sappers 
and miners of foreign despots are at work under 
our feet, and steadily advancing beneath the very 
citadel? Where is that unwearying vigilance 
which the eloquent Burke proclaimed to be the 
characteristic of our fathers, who did not wait to 
feel oppression, but " augured mis government 
at a distance, and snuffed the approach of ty- 
ranny in every tainted breeze ?" Are we their 
sons, and shall we sleep on our posts ? We may 
sleep, but the enemy is awake ; he is straining 
every nerve to possess himself of our fair land. 
We must awake, or we are lost. Foundations are 
attacked, fundamental principles are threatened 
interests are put in jeopardy, which throw all the 
questions which now agitate the councils of the 
country into the shade. It is Liberty itself that is 
in danger, not the liberty of a single state, no, nor 



THE MORAL STRENGTH OF THE REPUBLIC ATTACKED. 105 

of the United States, but the liberty of the world, 
Yes, it is the world that has its anxious eyes upon 
us ; it is the world that cries to us in the agony of 
its struggles against despotism, the World ex- 
pects America, republican America, to do 

HER DUTY. 

Our institutions have already withstood many 
assaults from within and from without, but the war 
has now assumed a new shape. An effort is now 
making that is to try the moral strength of 
the Republic. It is not a physical contest on the 
land or on the water. The issue depends not on 
the strength of our armies or navies. How then 
shall we defend ourselves from this new, this subtle 
attack 1 

" Defend yourselves V cries the Austrian Pa- 
pist ; " you cannot defend yourselves ; your go- 
vernment, in its very nature, is not strong enough 
to protect you against foreign or domestic conspi- 
racy. You must here take a lesson from legiti- 
mate governments ; we alone can teach the effec- 
tual method of suppressing conspiracies. You say 
you have a body of conspirators against your li- 
berties, a body of foreigners who are spreading 
their pernicious heresies through your land, and 
endangering the state. The weakness of republi- 
canism is now manifest. What constitutional or 

9* 



106 PAPAL MODE OF GUARDING THE STATE. 

legal provision meets the difficulty ? Where are 
your laws prohibiting Catholics from preaching or 
teaching their doctrines, and erecting their chapels, 
churches, and schools ? Where is your passport 
system, to enable you to know the movements of 
every man of them in the land ? Where is your 
Gens d'armerie, your armed police, those useful 
agents, whose domiciliary visits could ferret out 
every Catholic, seize and examine his papers, and 
keep him from further mischief in the dungeons of 
the state ? Where are your laws that can terrify, 
by the penalty of imprisonment, any man that dares 
to utter an opinion against the government ? 
Where is your judicious censorship of the press, 
to silence the Catholic journals, and stifle any Ca- 
tholic sentiments in other journals? Where is 
your Index expurgatorius, to denounce all unsafe 
books, that no Catholic book may be printed or 
admitted into the country ? Where is your system 
of, espionage that no Protestant may read a Catho- 
lic publication, or express in conversation a single 
sentiment unfavorable to Protestantism, without 
being overlooked and overheard by some faithful 
spy, and reported to the government ? Where are 
the officers in your post-office department for the 
secret examination of letters, so that even the most 
confidential correspondence may be purified from 



A MODE NOW IN ACTUAL OPERATION IN EUROPE. 107 

dangerous heresy ? Where is your secret Inquisi- 
torial Court for the trial and condemnation of apos- 
tate Protestants ? Without these changes in the 
constitution and laws of your government, you 
can oppose no efficient obstacle to the success of 
this conspiracy." 

And what shall I reply to this consistent Papist t 
The methods he would prescribe have the sanc- 
tion of successful experiment for some centuries. 
They are in sober truth the very means that Popery 
employs at this very day, in the countries where it 
is dominant, to prevent the spread of opinions con-ik 
trary to its own dogmas. 

But are these the methods that commend them- 
selves to American Protestants ? Does not such 
a cumbrous machinery of chains, and bolts, and 
bayonets, and soldiers, to hold the mind in bon- 
dage, seem rather a dream of the dark ages, than 
a real system now in actual operation in the nine- 
teenth century ? Away with Austrian and Popish 
precedent. American Protestantism is of a differ- 
ent school. It needs none of the aids which are 
indispensable to the crumbling despotisms of Eu- 
rope ; no soldiers, no restrictive enactments, no 
Index expurgatorius, no Inquisition. This war is 
the war of principles ; it is on the open field of 
free discussion ; and the victory is to be won by 



108 THE LIVING PRINCIPLE OF OUR INSTITUTIONS. 

the exercise of moral energy, by the force of re- 
ligious and political truth. But still it is a trar, 
and all true patriots must wake to the cry of dan- 
ger. They must up and gird themselves for battle. 
It is no false alarm. Our liberties are in danger. 
The Philistines are upon us. Their bonds are pre- 
pared, and they intend, if they can, to fasten them 
upon our limbs. We must shake off our lethargy, 
and like the giant awaking from his sleep, snap 
these shackles asunder. We are attacked in vul- 
nerable points by foreign enemies to all liberty. 
We must no longer indulge a quiet complacency 
in our institutions, as if there were a charm in the 
simple name of American liberty sufficiently po- 
tent to repel all invasion. For what constitutes 
the life of our justly cherished institutions 1 W r here 
is the living principle that sustains them ? Is it in 
the air we breathe ? Is it in the soil we cultivate ? 
Is our air or our soil more congenial to liberty 
than the air and soil of Austria, or Italy, or Spain ? 
No ! The life of our institutions ! — it is a moral and 
intellectual life ; it lies in the culture of the human 
mind and heart, of the reason and conscience ; it 
is bound up in principles which must be taught by 
father to son, from generation to generation, with 
care, with toil, with sacrifice. Hide the Bible for 
fifty years — (we will not ask for the hundred years 



TRUE MODE OF DEFENCE. 109 

so graciously granted by the autocrat to stifle li- 
berty) — hide the Bible for fifty years, and let our 
children be under the guidance of men whose first 
exercise upon the youthful mind is to teach that 
lesson of old school sophistry which distorts it for 
ever, and binds it through life in bonds of error to 
the dictation of a man — a man whom, in the same 
exercise of distorted reason, he is persuaded to 
believe infallible; let these Jesuit doctors take 
the place of our Protestant instructors, and where 
will be the political institutions of the country ? 
Ffty years would amply suffice to give the victory 
to the despotic principle, and realize the most san- 
guine wishes of the tyrants of Europe. 

The first thing to be done to secure safety, is to 
open our eyes at once to the reality and the extent 
of the danger. We must not walk on blindly, cry- 
ing " all's welL" The enemy is in all our bor- 
ders. He has spread himself through all the land. 
The ramifications of this foreign plot are every 
where visible to all who will open their eyes. Sur- 
prising and unwelcome as is such an announce- 
ment, we must hear it and regard it. We must 
make an immediate, a vigorous, a united, a 

PERSEVERING EFFORT TO SPREAD RELIGIOUS 
AND INTELLECTUAL CULTIVATION THROUGH EVE- 
RY part of our country. Not a village nor a 



110 POPERY IN FAVOR OF IGNORANCE. 

log-hut of the land should be overlooked. Where 
Popery has put darkness, we must put light. 
Where Popery has planted its crosses, its col- 
leges, its churches, its chapels, its nunneries, Pro- 
testant patriotism must put side by side college for 
college, seminary for seminary, church for church. 
And the money must not be kept back. Does Aus- 
tria send her tens of thousands to subjugate us to 
the principles of darkness ? We must send our 
hundreds of thousands, aye, our millions, if neces- 
sary, to redeem our children from the double bon- 
dage of spiritual and temporal slavery, and pre- 
serve to them American light and liberty. The 
food of Popery is ignorance. Ignorance is the mo- 
ther of papal devotion. Ignorance is the legitimate 
prey of Popery. 

But some one here asks, are not the Roman 
Catholics establishing schools and colleges, and 
seminaries of various kinds, in the destitute parts 
of the land ? Are not they also zealous for educa- 
tion ? May we not safely assist them in their en- 
deavors to enlighten the ignorant ? Enlighten the 
ignorant ! Does Popery enlighten the ignorant of 
Spain, of Portugal, of Italy, of Ireland, of South 
America, of Canada ? WTiat sort of instruction 
is that, in the latter country for example, which 
leaves 78,000 out of 87,000 of its grown up scho- 



THE NATURAL ENEMY OF GENERAL EDUCATION. Ill 

lars signers of a petition by their mark, unable to 
write their own names, and many of the remain- 
ing signers who write nothing but their names ? 
What sort of light is that which generates dark- 
ness ? Popery enlighten the ignorant ! Popery is 
the natural enemy of general education. Do you 
ask for proof? It is overwhelming. Look at the 
intellectual condition of all the countries where 
Popery is dominant. If Popery is in favor of ge- 
neral education, why are the great mass of the peo- 
ple, in the papal countries I have named, the most 
ill-informed, mentally degraded beings of all the 
civilized world, arbitrarily shut out by law from all 
knowledge but that which makes them slaves to 
the tyranny of their oppressors % No ! look well to 
it ! If Popery in this country is professing friend- 
ship to general knowledge, it is a feigned alliance. 
If it pretends to be in favor of educating the poor, 
it is a false pretence, it is only temporizing ; it is 
conforming for the present, from policy, to the spi- 
rit of Protestantism around it, that it may forge its 
chains with less suspicion. If it is establishing 
schools, it is to make them prisons of the youth- 
ful intellect of the country, If the Papists in Eu- 
rope are really desirous of enlightening ignorant 
Americans by establishing schools, let them make 
their first efforts among their brethren of the same 
faith in Canada and Mexico. 



112 WE MUST SPREAD EDUCATION. 

Do our fellow-citizens at the South and West 
ask for schools, and are there not funds and teach- 
ers enough in our own land of wealth and edu- 
cation to train up our own offspring in the free 
principles of our own institutions ? or are we in- 
deed so beggared as to be dependent on the cha- 
rities of the Holy Alliance and the Jesuits of Eu- 
rope for funds and teachers to educate our youth 
—in what? — the principles of despotism! 
Forbid it, patriotism ! forbid, it religion ! Our 
own means are sufficient ; we have wealth enough, 
and teachers in abundance. We have only to will 
it with the resolution and the zeal that have so of- 
ten been shown, whenever great national or moral 
interests are to be subserved, and every fortress, 
every corps of Austrian darkness would be sur- 
rounded ; the lighted torches of truth, political 
and religious, would flash their unwelcome beams 
into every secret chamber of the enemies of our 
liberty, and drive these ill-omened birds of a fo- 
reign nest to their native hiding-place. 



CHAPTER X. 



All classes of citizens interested in resisting the efforts of 
Popery — The unnatural alliance of Popery and Demo- 
cracy exposed — Religious liberty in danger— Specially in 
the ; keepingof the Christian community — They must rally 
for its defence—The secular press has no sympathy with 
them in this struggle, it is opposed to them— The Political 
character of Popery ever to be kept in mind, and op- 
posed — It is for the Papist, not the Protest ant, to separate 
his religious from his political creed — Papists ought to be 
required publicly, and formally, and officially to renounce 
foreign allegiance and anti-republican customs. 

In considering the means of counteracting this 
foreign political conspiracy against our free institu- 
tions, I have said that we must awake to the reali- 
ty and extent of the danger, and rouse ourselves 
to immediate and vigorous action in spreading' 
religious and intellectual cultivation through 
the land. This indeed would be effectual, but 
this remedy is remote in its operation, and is most 
seriously retarded by the enormous increase of 
ignorance which is flooding the country by foreign 
immigration. While therefore the remote effects 
of our exertions are still provided for, the pressing 
exigency of the case seems to require some more 

10 



U4 POPERY DOUBLY OPPOSED TO OUR INSTITUTIONS. 

immediate efforts to prevent the further spread of 
the evil. The two-fold character of the enemy 
who is attacking us must be well considered. 
Popery is doubly opposed — civilly and religious- 
ly — to all that is valuable in our free institutions. 
As a religious system, it is the avowed arrd com- 
mon enemy of every other religious sect in the 
land. The Episcopalian, the Methodist, the Pres- 
byterian, the Baptist, the Quaker, the Unitarian, 
the Jew, &c. &c. are alike anathematized, are to- 
gether obstinate heretics, in the creed of the Pa- 
pist. He wages an indiscriminate, uncompromis- 
ing, exterminating war with all. 

As a 'political system, it is opposed to every 
political party in the country. Popery in its very 
nature is opposed to the genius of our free system, 
notwithstanding its affected, artful appropriation 
(in our country only) of the habits and phraseology 
of democracy. Present policy alone dictates so 
unnatural an alliance, aye, most unnatural al- 
liance. What ! Popery and Democracy allied ? 
Despotism and Liberty hand in hand ? Has the 
Sovereign Pontiff in very deed turned Democrat in 
the United States ? Let us look into this incon- 
gruous coalition, this solecism in politics — Popish 
Democracy. Do Popish Bishops or Priests con- 
sult the people ? Have the people any voice in 



ALLIANCE OF POPERY AND DEMOCRACY EXPOSED. 115 

ecclesiastical matters ? Can the people vote their 
own taxes ? or are they imposed upon them by ir- 
responsible priests ? Do the bishops and priests 
account for the manner in which they spend the 
people's money 1 Has Popery here adopted the 
American principle of B.EsponsiBiLiTY to the 
People ; a responsibility which gives the most 
insignificant contributor of his money towards any 
object, a right to examine into the manner in which 
it is disbursed? No ! the people account to their 
priests in all cases, not the priests to the peo- 
ple in any case. What sort of Democracy is that 
where the people have no power, and the priests 
have all, by divine right ? Let us hear no more 
of the presumptuous claim of Popery to Demo- 
cracy. Popery is the antipodes of Democracy. 
It is the same petty tyrant of the people here, as 
in Europe. And this is the tyranny that hopes to 
escape detection by assuming the name and adopt- 
ing the language of Democracy.* It is this tyran- 
ny that is courted and favored at political elections 
by our politicians of all parties, because it has the 
advantage of a despotic organization. f How much 

* See note N. 

t And infidelity too, it seems, has just learned the secret 
of political power, and, not content with civil and religious 
liberty, has introduced a third kind, and organizing itself 
into a new interest, demands to be represented in the state 
as the advocate of irreligious liberty ! 



116 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN DANGER. 

longer are the feelings of the religious community 
to be scandalized, and their moral sense outraged, 
by the bare-faced bargainings for Catholic and in- 
fidel votes ? Have the religious community no 
remedy against such outrage ? If they have not, 
if there is not a single point on which they can 
act together, if the religious denominations of va- 
rious names can have no understanding on mat- 
ters of this kind, if they have no common bond to 
unite them in repelling common enemies, then let 
us boast no more of religious liberty. What is 
religious liberty 1 Is it merely a phrase to round 
a period in a fourth of July oration ? Is it a daz- 
zling sentiment for Papists to use in blinding the 
eyes of the people, while they rivet upon them 
their foreign chains of superstition ? Is it a shield 
to be held before Infidels, from behind which 
they may throw their poisoned shafts at all that 
is orderly and fair in our civil as well as reli- 
gious institutions ? Or is it that prize above all 
price, that heaven-descended gift to the world, 
for which, with its twin sister, we contended in 
our war for independence, and which we are 
bound, by every duty to ourselves, to our children, 
to our country, to the world, to guard with the 
most jealous care? And has it ever occurred 
to Christians that this duty of guarding religious 



THE SECULAR PRESS AN UNFAITHFUL WATCHMAN. 117 

liberty in a more special manner devolves on 
them ? Who but the religious community appre- 
ciate the inestimable value of religious liberty 1 
Are their interests safe in the hands of the infidel, 
who scoffs at all religion, and uses his civil liberty 
to subvert all liberty ? Is it safe in the hands of 
imported radicals and blasphemers ? Is it safe in 
the hands of calculating, selfish, power-seeking 
politicians? Is it safe in the keeping of Metter- 
nich's stipendiaries, the active agents of a foreign 
despotic power ? Does the secular press take 
care of our religious liberty ? Is there a secular 
journal that has even hinted to its readers the ex- 
istence of this double conspiracy ? The most dan- 
gerous politico-religious sect that ever existed, a 
sect that has been notorious for ages for throwing 
governments into confusion, is politically at work 
in our own country, under the immediate auspices 
of the most despotic power of Europe, interested 
politically and vitally in the destruction of our free 
institutions, and is any alarm manifested by the 
secular press ? No ! they are altogether silent on 
this subject. They presume it is only a religious 
controversy, and they cannot meddle with reli- 
gious controversies. They must not expose reli- 
gious imposture, lest they should be called pious. 
They have no idea of blending church and state, 

10* 



118 THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY MUST GUARD TKEIR RIGHTS. 

They have a religion of their own, a worship in 
which the public, they think, feel a more exciting 
interest. One has a liberty "pole to be erected, 
another a hickory tree, and the rival pretensions 
to superiority of these wooden gods of their idol- 
atry it is of the last importance to settle, and the 
bacchanalian revelry of their consecration must be 
recorded and blazoned forth in italics and capitals 
in its minutest particulars : " Pole ! O Tree ! 
thou art the preserver of our liberty I" No ; if the 
religious community (in which term I mean to 
include Protestants of every name who profess a 
religious faith) awake not to the defence of their 
own rights in the state, if they indulge timidity or 
jealousy of each other, if they will not come for- 
ward boldly and firmly to withstand the encroach- 
ments of corruption upon their own rights ; the 
selfish politicians of the day (and they swarm in 
the ranks of all parties) will bargain away all that 
is valuable in the country, civil and religious, to 
the Pope, to Austria, or to any foreign power that 
will pay them the price of their treason. 

We cannot be too often reminded of the double 
character of the enemy who has gained foothold 
upon our shores ; for although Popery is a religious 
sect, and on this ground claims toleration side by 
side with other religious sects, yet Popery is also 



DILEMMA OF PAPISTS. 119 

a political, a despotic system, which we must repel 
as altogether incompatible with the existence of 
freedom. I repeat it, Popery is a political, a des- 
potic system, which must be resisted by all true 
patriots. 

Is it asked, how can we separate the characters 
thus combined in one individual ? How can we re- 
pel the politics of a Papist without infringing upon 
his religious right ? I answer, that this is a^diffi- 
culty for Papists, not for Protestants to solve. If 
Papists have made their religion and despotism 
identical, that is not our fault. Our religion, the 
Protestant religion, and Liberty are identical, and 
liberty keeps no terms with despotism. American 
Protestants use no such solecism as religious des- 
potism. Shall political heresy be shielded from all 
attack, because it is connected with a religious 
creed ? Let Papists separate their religious faith 
from their political faith, if they can, and the for- 
mer shall suffer no political attack from us. " But 
no," the Papist cries, " I cannot separate them ; 
my religion is so blended with the political system, 
that they must be tolerated or refused together ; 
my 'whole system is one, and indivisible, un- 
changeable, infallible ' — I am conscientious, I 
cannot separate them." What are we to do in 
such a case 1 Are we to surrender our civil and 
religious liberty to such presumptuous folly ? 



120 THEY MUST RENOUNCE FOREIGN ALLIANCE. 

No ! our liberties must be preserved ; and we 
say, and say firmly to the Popish Bishops and Priests 
among us, give us your declaration of your rela- 
tion to our civil government. Renounce your fo- 
reign allegiance, your allegiance to a Foreign 
Sovereign. Let us have your own avowal in an 
official manifesto, that the Democratic Govern- 
ment under which you here live delights you 
best. Put your ecclesiastical doings upon as 
open and popular a footing as other sects. 
Open your books to the people, that they may 
scrutinize your financial matters, that the peo- 
ple, your own people, may know how much they 
pay to priests, and how the priests expend their 
money ; that the poorest who is taxed from his 
hard-earned wages for church dues, and the 
richest ioho gives his gold to support your ex- 
travagant ceremonial, may equally know that 
their contributions are not misapplied. Come 
out and declare your opinion on the Liberty 
of the Press, on Liberty of Conscience, and 
Liberty of Opinion. Americans demand it. 
They are waking up. They have their eyes upon 
you. Think not the American eagle is asleep. 
Americans are not Austrians, to be hood-winked 
by Popish tricks. This is a call upon you you 
will be obliged soon to regard. Nor will they be 



THE PROBABLE CONSISTENCY OF THE DOCUMENT. 121 

content with partial, obscure avowals of repub- 
lican sentiments in your journals, by insulated 
priests, or even bishops. The American people 
will require a more serious testimonial of your 
opinions on these fundamental political points. 
You have had Convocations of Bishops at Balti- 
more. Let us have, at their next assembling, their 
sentiments on these vital points. Let us have a 
document full and explicit, signed by their 
names, a document that may circulate as well 
in Austria and Italy as in America ; aye, a 
document that may be published ** conpermis- 
sione" in the Diario di Roma, and be circulated 
to instruct the faithful in the united church, the 
church of but one mind, in the sentiments of 
American democratic Bishops on these American 
principles. Let us see how they will accord with 
those of his Holiness Pope Gregory XVI. in 
his late ^encyclical letter ! Will Popish Bishops 
dare to put forth such a manifesto ? No ! They 
dare not. 



CHAPTER XL 



The question, what is the duty of the Protestant commu- 
nity, considered— Shall there be an Anti-Popery Union ? 
The strong manifesto that might be put forth by such a 
union— Such a political union discarded as impolitic and 
degrading to a Protestant community — Golden opportu- 
nity for showing the moral energy of the Republic— i he 
lawful, efficient weapons of this contest— To be used 
without delay* 

There is no question of more pressing, more 
vital importance to the whole country than this : 
What is the duty of the Protestant community in 
the perilous condition to which religious as well as 
civil liberty is reduced by the attempts of Popery 
and foreign enemies upon our free institutions ? 
Have Christian patriots reflected at all on the 
possible, nay, I will say probable loss of religious 
liberty ; or in idea attempted to follow out to their 
result, and in their immeasurable extent, the fearful 
consequences of its loss ? Why is it, then, that 
no more energetic efforts are made to save our- 
selves ? 



we hear this fearful tempest sing, 



Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm; 
We see the wind sit sore upon our sails, 
And yet we strike not, but securely perish, 



124 DUTY OF THE PROTESTANT COMMUNITY. 

We see the very wreck that we must suffer ; 

And un avoided is the danger now, 

For suffering so the causes of our wreck. 

Shakspeare* 

Yes, the rocks are in full view on which American 
liberty must inevitably be wrecked, unless all 
hands are roused to immediate action. Our dan- 
gers are none the less, be assured, because they 
are not those against which the general cry of 
alarm is so loudly raised by the two great politi- 
cal parties of the day. In the heedless strife they 
are now waging, the most superlative epithets of 
alarm have been already exhausted by each, on 
fictitious or comparatively trivial dangers to the 
commonwealth. The public ear is deafened by 
their noise ; its sense of hearing is grown callous 
with the reiterated cries of alarm on every slight 
occasion. " Wolf! Wolf!" has been so often 
falsely cried, that now, when the wolf has in re- 
ality appeared, we cannot be made to realize it. 
M If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall 
prepare himself for the battle ?" We are busy- 
ing ourselves in quenching the few falling sparks 
that threaten the deck of the ship, without heeding 
the fire beneath, that is approaching the magazine. 
In this reckless warfare of passion, and falsehood? 
and slander, and aided by the deafening din of 
party strife, neither party seem to have observed 



FORMATION OF AN ANTI-POPERY UNION CONSIDERED. 125 

that a secret enemy, an artful foreign enemy, has 
stolen in among us, joining his foreign accents 
to swell the uproar, that he may with less suspi- 
cion do his nefarious work.* Like incendiaries at 
a conflagration, they even cry fire! loudest, 
and are most ostentatiously busy in seeming to 
protect that very prop erty which they watch but to 
make their prey. 

What then can be done ? Shall Protestants or- 
ganize themselves into a political union after the 
manner of the Papists, and the various classes of 
industry and even of foreigners in the country % 
Shall they form an Anti-Popery Union, and take 
their places among this strange medley of conflict- 
ing interests ] And why should they not ? Va- 
rious parties and classes do now combine and or- 
ganize for their own interest ; and if any class of 
men are allowed thus to combine and promote 
their own peculiar interests at the expense of ano- 
ther class, that other class surely has at least an 
equal right to combine to protect itself against the 
excess of its antagonist. A denial of this right 
would certainly come with an ill grace from those 
who are already formed into separate organiza- 
tions, as a Working Men's party, as a Trade's 
Union party, as a Catholic party, as an Irish 

* See note O. 
11 



126 PRINCIPLES OF 1 UNION. 

party, as a German party, yes, even as a French 
and an Italian party.* 

And now, on the supposition that such a politi- 
tical organization of Protestants were expedient, 
(for it resolves itself altogether into a question of 
expediency,) let us see whether any party or inte- 
rest could show a stronger claim upon the support 
of the whole nation. Its manifesto might run 
thus : 

Popery is a political system 7 despotic in its 
organization, anti-democratic and anti-republi- 
can, and cannot therefore co-exist with American 
republicanism. 

The ratio of increase of Popery is the exact 

ratio of decrease of civil liberty. 

* By classing these together at this moment, I do not in* 
tend to commit myself as expressing approval or disap-^ 
proval of the right of each and all of those to organize, but 
merely to show that such organization does already exist 
among other classes in the community, and if evenforeign* 
ers among us are allowed to exercise the right to organizer 
into a separate interest, yes, even as foreigners, can the 
right with any propriety be refused to American Chris- 
tians ? Having thus stated the case, I am now free to make 
the passing remark, that, excluding from view the threes 
classes first named, the right of foreigners to organize as 
foreigners, for political purposes, is at least very question- 
able ; but were their right unquestionably legal through 
the mildness of our laws, yet the practice is dangerous, in- 
decorus, and a palpable abuse of political liberality. The 
Irish naturalized citizens who should know no other name 
than Americans, for years have clanned together as Irish, 
and every means has beenused r and is still used, especially 
by Catholics, to preserve them distinct from the American 
family. Recently a portion of the Germans have organized 
to keep up their distinct nationality, and the French and 
Italians have just followed the example. [Nov. 1834.] To 
what will all this lead I 



ITS MANIFESTO. 127 

The dominance of Popery in the United States 
is the certain destruction of our free institutions. 

Popery, by its organization, is wholly under the 
control of a foreign despotic Sovereign. 

Austria, one of the Holy Alliance of Sove- 
reigns leagued against the liberties of the world, 

HAS THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE OPERA- 
TIONS of Popery in this country. 

The agents of Austria in the United States are 
Jesuits and priests in the pay of that foreign 
power, in active correspondence with their em- 
ployers abroad, not bound by ties of any kind to 
our government or country, but, on the contrary, 
impelled, hy the strongest motives of ambition, to 
serve the interests of a despotic foreign govern- 
ment ; which ambition has already, in one or more 
instances, been gratified, by promotion of these 
agents to higher office and wealth in Europe. 

Popery is a Union of Church and State, 
nor can Popery exist in this country in that pleni- 
tude of power which it claims as a divine right, 
and which, in the very nature of the system, it 
must continually strive to obtain, until such a 
union is consummated. Popery on this ground, 
therefore, is destructive to our religious as well 
as civil liberty. 

Popery is more dangerous and more formidable 



128 SUCH A UNION DISCARDED AS DEGRADING. 

than any power in the United States, on the 
ground that, through its despotic organization, 
it can concentrate its efforts for any purpose 
with complete effect ; and that organization being 
wholly under foreign control, it can have no real 
sympathy with any thing American. The funds, 
and intellect, and intriguing experience of all 
Papal and despotic Europe, by means of agents 
at this moment organized throughout our land, 
can, at any time, be brought in aid of the enter- 
prises of foreign pow r ers in this country. 

These are the grounds upon which an appeal 
for support might be made to the patriotism, the 
love of liberty, the hatred of tyranny, temporal and 
spiritual, which belong in common to the whole 
Protestant American family. 

But is this the plan of opposition to Popery that 
should be proposed, the plan which ought to be 
adopted by the Protestant community ? No ; dis- 
tinctly and decidedly no. Plausible as it may ap- 
pear, and perfectly in accordance as it is with the 
practice of politicians, the Christian community 
ought not, cannot adopt such an organization. 
There must not be a Christian party. What ! shall 
Christianity throw aside the keen moral and intel- 
lectual arms with which alone it has gained and 
secured every substantial victory since the com- 



CHRISTIANS MUST NOT DEGRADE THEMSELVES. 129 

niencement of its glorious career ; shall it ex- 
change those arms of heavenly temper, " mighty 
in pulling down strong holds," for the paltry, 
earthly (I might even say infernal) weapons of par- 
ty strife ? Can Christianity stoop so low ? Can it 
bring itself down from contemplating its great 
work of revolutionizing the world, by bringing 
moral truth to bear on the conscience and the 
heart, and narrow its vision to the contracted 
sphere of party politics ? Can it enter, without de- 
filement, into the polluted and polluting arena of 
political contest ? Can it consent to be bargained 
for by political hucksters, or have the price of its 
favors hawked in the market by political brokers ?* 
Can it consent to compete with Popery in the use 
of those instruments of intrigue, and trick, and 
gambling management, in which Popery is per- 
fectly skilled from the hoarded experience of ages ? 
Can Christians present themselves before the 
country and the world, in this enlightened age and 
country, as a mere political party ? No, no ; God 
forbid that we should forget the holy character of 
our cause ; let us not be caught in that snare of 
the enemy. The danger-cry of Church and State 
may safely be left to the people, to trumpet aloud 
through the land, when the blind infatuation which 

* See note P. 
11* 



130 CHRISTIANS MUST EXERCISE MORAL ENERGY, 

now closes their eyes shall have been removed, 
and they shall be able to see, what many already 
see, the secret political manceuvrings* of a sect 
whose very existence depends upon a union of 
Church and State. No ; let American Christian- 
ity proclaim anew to all the world that it can never 
be wooed to any such unholy alliance. It will keep 
its garments unspotted from the crimes of the 
State. It will take none of the responsibilities of 
the political errors of the age, nor father any of the 
evils which the unprincipled politicians of the day 
may bring upon the country and the world as the 
effect of their political bargainings. 

Now is the time for this Christian Republic to 
show her moral energy. Europe is an anxious 
spectator of our contests, and is watching the suc- 
cess of this new trial of the strength of our boast- 
ed institutions. Oh ! what a lesson, what an im- 
pressive lesson might free America now read to 
Europe ! what an example of the power of moral 
over physical government can she give to the 
world, if she will but rouse herself, in her moral 
might, to the grand effort which the occasion de- 
mands ! How would the petty jealousies of the 
different Protestant sects be swallowed up in the 
magnitude of the one great enterprise ! How 

* See note R. 



AND VIE WITH EACH OTHER. 131 

would every sect rather cheer the others on, in 
their united march against the common foe, and 
make a common rejoicing of the success of any 
and every corps, as of a victorious regiment in the 
same great army ! 

Will American Christians prepare themselves 
for this enterprise ? Will each sect awake to the 
feeling of its being a corps of the great Christian 
army, marching under the command of no earthly 
leader, fighting with no earthly weapons, and against 
no earthly foe ? Will they wake to the perception 
of the great truth, that while their great Captain 
allows each to act separately and independently 
within certain limits, it is he that commands in 
chief, and now orders all his soldiers, under what- 
ever earthly banner enrolled, in united phalanx to 
go forward, forward in his single service ? W T hich 
corps will first marshal itself for action ? Which 
will be first in the field ? Which will press forward 
with most zeal for the honor of the advance, for 
the post of danger ? Which in the battle will be 
most in earnest to carry forward the standards of 
truth and plant them upon the battlements of papal 
darkness ? Will any shrink back for fear ? Will 
any be deterred from unholy jealousy of its neigh- 
bor ? Will any indulge in unchristian, ignoble sus- 
picion of its brethren ? What cause have any for 



132 r ; CHRISTIANS MUST IMMEDIATELY 

fear, or jealousy, or suspicion ? This enterprise 
asks no sacrifice of sectarian principle ; it demands 
no surrender of conscientious predilection of each 
to its own modes and forms ; but it does ask the 
sacrifice of petty prejudice ; it does demand the 
surrender of those miserable jealousies and envy- 
ings which more or less belong to some of every 
sect, when they learn the greater success of ano- 
ther, as if the victory of one were not the victory 
of all. And what are the weapons of this warfare ? 
The Bible, the Tract, the Infant school, the Sun- 
day school, the common school for all classes, the 
academy for all classes, the college and university 
for all classes, a free press for the discussion of all 
questions. These, all these, are weapons of Pro- 
testantism, weapons unknown to Popery ! Yes, 
all unknown to genuine Popery ! Let no one be 
deceived by the Popish apings of Protestant insti- 
tutions. The Popish seminary has little in com- 
mon with the Protestant seminary but the name. 
It is but the sheep's skin that covers the wolf 's 
back ; the teeth and the claws are not even well 
concealed beneath. "With the weapons we have 
named, and with our education societies, theologi- 
cal seminaries, and missionary societies, we need 
no new organization, no Anti-Popery union. But 
we must use our arms, and not rest satisfied with 



UNITE IN PROMOTING EDUCATION, 133 

the possession of them. They must be furbished 
anew, and we must prepare ourselves for a vigor- 
ous warfare. We must be stirring, if we mean in- 
deed to be victorious. Not a moment is to be lost. 
The enemy knows well the importance of the pre- 
sent instant. Hear what he says, " We must 
make haste, the moments are precious. If the 
Protestant sects are beforehand with us, 

IT WILL BE DIFFICULT TO DESTROY THEIR IN- 
FLUENCE." Ought not this acknowledgment of 
the enemy to quicken and encourage to instant ef- 
fort ? And again writes a Catholic Missionary, 
" Zeal for error is always hot, particularly among 
the Methodists, whom nothing can turn from their 
track, and who heap absurdity upon absurdity. I 
should despair if I should see this sect building 
a church in my neighborhood." Will not our 
Methodist brethren take this hint ? 



CHAPTER XII. 

The political duty of American citizens at this crisis 

In my last number I deemed it a duty to warn 
the Christian community against the temptation to 
which they were exposed, in guarding against the 
political dangers arising from Popery, of leaving 
their proper sphere of action, and degrading them- 
selves to a common political interest. This is a 
snare into which they might easily fall, and into 
which, if Popery could invite or jbrce them, it 
might keep a jubilee, for its triumph would be sure. 
The propensity to resist by unlawful means the 
encroachments of an enemy, because that enemy 
uses such means against us, belongs to human na- 
ture. We are very apt to think, in the irritation of 
being attacked, that we may lawfully hurl back the 
darts of a foe, whatever may be their character ; 
that we may " fight the devil with fire," instead of 
the milder, yet more effective weapon of " the 
Lord rebuke thee." The same spirit of Christiani- 
ty which forbids us to return railing for railing, and 



136 THE DUTY OF AMERICANS 

persecution for persecution, forbids the use of un- 
lawful or even of doubtful means of defence, mere- 
ly because an enemy uses them to attack us. If 
Popery (as is unblushingly the case) organizes 
itself at our elections, if it interferes politically, and 
sells itself to this or that political demagogue or 
party, it should be remembered that this is notori- 
ously the true character of Popery. It is its na- 
ture. It cannot act otherwise. Intrigue is its ap- 
propriate business. But all this is foreign to Chris- 
tianity. Christianity must not enter the political 
arena with Popery, nor be mailed in Popish armor. 
The weapons and stratagems of Popery suit not 
with the simplicity and frankness of Christianity. 
Like David with the armor of Saul, it would sink 
beneath the ill-fitting covering, before the Philis- 
tine. Yes ! Popery will be an overmatch for any 
Christian who fights behind any other shield than 
that of Faith, or uses any other sword than the 
sword of the Spirit of Truth. 

But whilst deprecating a union of religious 
sects to act politically against Popery, I must not 
be misunderstood as recommending no political 
opposition to Popery by the American community. 
I have endeavored to rouse Protestants to a re- 
newed and more vigorous use of their religious 
weapons in their moral war with Popery, but I am 



TO OPPOSE POPERY POLITICALLY, 137 

not unmindful of another duty, the political duty, 
which the double character of Popery makes it 
necessary to urge upon American citizens with 
equal force — the imperious duty of defending the 
distinctive principles of our civil government. It 
must be sufficiently manifest to every republican 
/'citizen that the civil polity of Popery is in direct 
opposition to all which he deems sacred in govern- 
ment. He must perceive that Popery cannot, from 
its very nature, tolerate any of those civil rights 
which are the peculiar boast of Americans. Should 
Popery increase but for a little time longer in this 
country, with the alarming rapidity with which, as 
authentic statistics testify, it js advancing at the 
present time, (and it must not be forgotten that 
despotism in Europe, in its desperate struggles 
for existence, is lending its powerful aid to the en- 
terprise,) we may even in this generation learn by 
sad experience what common sagacity and ordinary 
research might now teach in time to arrest the evil, 
that Popery cannot tolerate our form of govern- 
ment in any of its essential principles. 

Popery does not acknowledge the right of the? 
people to govern; but claims for itself the supreme 
right to govern all people, and all rulers, by divine 
right. 

v It does not tolerate the Liberty of the Press ; it 

12 



138 LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE 

takes advantage indeed of our liberty of the press 
to use its own press against our liberty, but it pro- 
claims in the thunders of the Vatican, and with a 
voice which it pronounces infallible and unchange- 
able, that it is a liberty " never sufficiently to be ex- 
ecraied and detested" 

It does not tolerate liberty of conscience nor 
liberty of opinion. The one is denounced by the 
Sovereign Pontiff as u a most pestilential er- 
ror" and the other, u a pest of all others most to 
be dreaded in a state" 

It is not responsible to the people in its finan- 
cial matters. It taxes at will, and is accounta- 
ble to none but itself. 

v Now these are political tenets held by Papists 
in close union with their religious belief, yet these 
are not religious but civil tenets ; they belong 
to despotic government. Conscience cannot be 
pleaded against our dealing politically with them. 
They are separable from religious belief; and if 
Papists will separate them, and repudiate these 
noxious principles, and teach and act accordingly, 
the political duty of exposing and opposing Pa- 
pists, on the ground of the enmity of their political 
tenets to our republican government will cease. 
But can they do it ? If they can, it behoves them 
to do it without delay. If they cannot, or will not, 



NOT TOLERATED BY POPERY. 139 

let them not complain of religious persecution, 
or of religious intolerance, if this republican peo- 
ple, when it shall wake to a sense of the danger 
that threatens its blood-bought institutions, shall 
rally to their defence with some show of indigna- 
tion. Let them not whine about religious oppres- 
sion, if the democracy turns its searching eye 
upon this secret treason to the state, and shall in 
future scrutinize with something of suspicion the 
professions of those foreign friends, who are so 
ready to rush to a fraternal embrace. Let them 
not raise the cry of religious proscription, if Ame- 
rican republicans shall stamp an indelible brand 
upon the liveried slaves of a foreign despot, 
the servile adorers of their good " Emperor," 
the Austrian conspirators, who now, sheltered 
behind the shield of our religious liberty, dream of 
security, while sapping the foundations of our civil 
government. Let no foreign Holy Alliance pre- 
sume, or congratulate itself, upon the hitherto un- 
suspicious and generous toleration of its secret 
agents in this country. America may for a time 
sleep soundly, as innocence is wont to sleep, unsus- 
picious of hostile attack ; but if any foreign power, 
jealous of the increasing strength of the embryo 
giant, sends its serpents to lurk within his cradle, 
let such presumption be assured that the waking 



140 THE INFANT HERCULES AWAKE. 

energies of the infant are not to be despised ; that 
once having grasped his foes, he will neither be 
tempted from his hold by admiration of their paint- 
ed and gilded covering, nor by fear of the fatal 
embrace of their treacherous folds, fr 



APPENDIX 



Note A.— Page 20. 
The War of Opinions. 

Every account from Europe attests the correct- 
ness of the views here taken more than a year since, 
of the political state of the civilized world. This war 
of opinions, or of categories, as Lafayette termed 
it, is in truth commenced, and Americans, if they 
will but use common observation, cannot but feel 
that a neglect to notice and provide against the con- 
sequences of that settled, systematic hostility to free 
institutions so strongly manifested by foreign pow- 
ers, and which is daily assuming a more serious 
aspect, will inevitably result in mischief to the 
country, will surely be attended with anarchy, if 
they wake not to the apprehension of the reality of 
this danger. Americans, you indeed sleep upon a 
mine. This is scarcely a figure of speech. You 
have excitable materials in the bosom of your so- 
ciety, which, skillfully put in action by artful dema- 
gogues, will subvert your present social system, 

12* 



142 APPENDIX. 

You have a. foreign interest too, daily, hourly in- 
creasing, ready to take advantage of every excite- 
ment, and which will shortly be beyond your con- 
trol, or will be subdued only by blood. 'You have 
agents among you, men in the pay of those very 
foreign powers, whose every measure of foreign 
and domestic policy has now for its end and aim 
the destruction of liberty every where. To in- 
crease your peril, you have a press that will not 
apprize you of the dangers that threaten you ; we 
can reach you with our warnings only through the 
religious journals ; the daily press is blind, or 
asleep, or bribed, or afraid ; at any rate, it is silent 
on this subject, and thus is throwing the weight of 
its influence on the side of your enemies. Foreign 
spies have clothed themselves in a religious dress, 
and so awe-struck ]are our journalists at its sacred 
texture, or so unable or unwilling to discern the 
difference between the man and his mask, that 
they start away in fear, lest they should be called 
bigoted, or intolerant, or persecuting, if they should 
venture to lift up the consecrated cloke that hides 
a foreign foe. Americans, if you depend on your 
daily press, you rely on a broken reed ; it fails you 
in your need. It dare not, no, it dare not attack 
Popery. It dare not drag into the light the politi- 
cal enemies of your liberty, because they come in 
the name of religion. All despotic Europe is 
awake and active in plotting your downfall, and 
yet they let you sleep, and you chose not to be 
awaked : " a little more sleep, a little more slum- 



APPENDIX. 143 

ber, a little more folding of the hands to sleep." 
And now, like a man whose house is on fire, 
dreaming of comfort and security, you will per- 
haps repel with passion and reproach the friendly 
hand that would wake you in season to escape 
with your life. 

Do you doubt whether Europe is in hostile ar- 
ray against liberty ? Read of the movements and 
revolutions of foreign cabinets, as one or the 
other principle temporarily predominates. Read 
the views of the statesmen of Europe. A distin- 
guished member of the Spanish Cortes, Don Te- 
lesforo de Trueba, in a speech delivered before 
that body a few months since, says, " The pre- 
sent war is not a war of succession but of princi- 
ple — liberty and despotism are at issue. Eng- 
land, France, Belgium, Spain and Portugal have 
ranged themselves under the banner of the for- 
mer, but it is not necessary for me to name those 
powers who follow the standard of the latter." 
Of Don Carlos and his government he says, "Ig- 
norance, hypocrisy and fanaticism are his only 
counsellors, whispering to him new modes of op- 
pressing his people. Every thing around is stamp- 
ed with the marks of baseness and falsehood, 
while in this infernal region desolation and death 
reign triumphant. A sanguinary priesthood is sa- 
crificing human victims to the God of peace and 
love — men who wish to bring back the dark ages, 
the age of tyranny, and ignorance, and death." 

The foreign correspondent of the Evening Post, 



144 APPENDIX. 

in a letter from Florence, Italy, published in that 
journal Dec. 27, 1834, has the following informa- 
tion directly from Tuscany. 

" Hitherto " (in ^the administration of the go- 
vernment) " a disposition has been shown to let 
off political offenders as lightly as possible ; but 
lately, however, something of the same jealousy 
of republicanism has shown itself which has 
been manifested by the other absolute govern- 
ments of Europe, A quarterly journal was sup- 
pressed a few months since on account of some- 
thing which gave offence to Austria. This, and 
several other acts of the Grand Duke, have great- 
ly diminished his personal popularity. The rulers 
of Italy appear to have come to an understand- 
ing, that it is time to make an example of some 
of the disaffected." 

Now this Austria is the same busy, meddling 
government that is operating in this country ; we 
scarcely read the name of Austria in a foreign 
journal, or in letters from abroad, but in connec- 
tion with some plan for extinguishing liberty ; and 
yet we harbor her emissaries, promote their secret 
designs, contribute our money to swell their cof- 
fers, build for them their seminaries and convents, 
intrust our children to their instruction, court their 
favor, shield them from all attack, yes, even put 
ourselves under their protection : all, all this we 
do, and our native blood flows evenly in our veins, 
Spirit of '76, where dost thou sleep ? 



APPENDIX. 145 

Note B.-~ Page 42. 
Opposite tendencies of Popery and Protestantism, 

On the very threshold of the examination upon 
which I have here entered, and while searching 
among the records of the two sects for the poli- 
tical tendencies of the principles of Popery and 
Protestantism, I was struck with the marked dif- 
ference in extent which the two fields of inquiry 
legitimately offered for examination. The prime 
dogma of the Catholics, that all which their church 
teaches is infallible, unchangeable ; that what she 
has once taught as truth, must now and for ever be 
truth, lays open to our examination a wide field. 
All and each of these precepts, laws, and acts of 
Popery, from the earliest ages to the present day, 
may be legitimately quoted to show the political 
character of that sect. Innovation, repeal, reform 
or progress can find no admittance into the Papal 
system without destroying the fundamental prin- 
ciple on which the whole system rests. " The 
whole of our faith," says Cardinal Pallavicini, an 
infallible authority, " rests upon one indivisible 
article, namely, the infallible authority of the 
church. The moment, therefore, that we give up 
any part whatever, the whole falls ; for what ad- 
mits not of being divided, must evidently stand 
entire, or fall entire.* 

Protestantism, on the contrary, is founded on 



146 APPENDIX. 

the Bible ; the Bible is the rallying point of all 
Protestant religious sects. They all believe that 
God is its author. The religious faith of each is 
bound to this one volume. But as the Bible pre- 
scribes no form of faith, or doctrine, or of church 
government, in which all, in the exercise of the 
natural and revealed right of private judgment, 
can agree, each sect adopts that form most in ac- 
cordance with what it believes to be the spirit of 
the doctrines which the Bible teaches. Hence 
there is diversity of views, according to the di- 
versities of human constitution, according to the 
varying degrees of intellectual cultivation, or to 
the peculiar wants and condition incident to the 
infinite variety of circumstances in which human 
society exists. Upon this freedom to choose ac- 
cording to the dictates of reason and conscience, 
granted to man by his Maker, denied by Roman 
Catholics and claimed by Protestants, is built the 
fabric of religious liberty. Difference of opinion 
being allowed, contrcversij of course ensues, and 
converts are made, not by force of arms, but by 
force of truth supported by appeals to reason and 
conscience. Zealous according to the strength of 
his belief in the dogmas of his sect, the Protestant 
calls to his aid the treasures of science. He be- 
lieves that the divine Author of truth in the Bible 
is also the author of truth in nature. He knows, 
that as truth is one, He that created all that forms 
the vast field of scientific research cannot contra- 
dict truth in Scripture by truth in nature ; the Pro- 



APPENDIX, 147 

testant is therefore the consistent encourager of 
all learning, of all investigation. Every discovery 
in science, he feels, brings to religious truth fresh 
treasures. Free inquiry and discussion, all intel- 
lectual activity, legitimately belongs to Protes- 
tantism. It is by thus opening wide the doors of 
knowledge, and letting in the light of natural sci- 
ence upon what it believes to be the revealed truth 
of the Bible, that Protestantism has been able 
gradually to bring out the principle of religious 
liberty, and in its train the invaluable blessing of 
civil liberty. At the commencement of the re- 
formation, however, we are not able to look for a 
full development of the free principles of Pro- 
testantism. We must expect to find many truths 
(which, to us who live in the noon of freedom, are 
as clear as the sun) then obscured or entirely in- 
visible in the popish darkness of the times. The 
slavish prohibitions, the deep-rooted heathen rites, 
and the arbitrary dogmas of Popery, were then 
enforced by power, by ignorance, and corruption ; 
so that the struggle of free with despotic princi- 
ples was attended, through many generations, 
with constant vicissitude. No maxim or usage of 
Popish intolerance that for a long time clung or 
still clings to any of the Protestant systems of 
Europe, can be quoted against American Protes- 
tantism ; consequently I am under no necessity 
of defending any despotic or intolerant practice 
which may be charged or proved upon foreign or 
ancient Frotestantism ; while every act or practice, 



148 APPENDIX. 



past or present, of Popish enactment is (Papists 
themselves being judges) available to demon- 
strate the immutable character of Popery. 



Note C— Page 5 5 



The foreign Emissaries of Popery rewarded in 
their own country. 

This is a matter deserving of serious attention. 
Where is now Bishop Cheverus, who passed about 
fourteen years in Boston ? He was a foreigner, 
with no ties to this country ; paid for his services 
by a foreign government, he had a duty to his fo- 
reign masters to perform. What that duty was may 
now easily be conjectured. Boston, as the capital 
of New-England, was considered, at the time he 
arrived, the strong hold of Protestant, of anti- 
Popish principles. Popery was there, and through- 
out New-England, held in the greatest abhor- 
rence ; for to Popery may be traced, though re- 
motely, yet clearly, the persecutions which drove 
the Pilgrim-fathers to this country. The history of 
those fathers, for ages previous, is but the history 
of hard fought battles to wrest from Popish usur- 
pation those invaluable rights, civil and religious, 
which they fled to this wilderness securely to en- 
joy. Ere Popery, then, could expect to gain foot- 
hold among the descendants of the persecuted Pu- 



APPENDIX. 149 

ritans, their almost innate abhorrence to Popery 
must be overcome. What plan could be better de- 
vised to accomplish the end, than to send the mild, 
conciliating, gentle Bishop to demonstrate, by his 
example and his teaching, that Popery was not 
that monster their fathers had taught them to be- 
lieve it to be, or at least that now the tyrant had 
grown mild and tolerant ? If this were the de- 
sign, no plan could have been more successful. 
Who that has visited Boston, does not know the 
epithets with which Bishop Cheverus' name is 
coupled? The good Bishop, the liberal Bishop, the 
excellent, pious, tolerant, mild Bishop. 1 * Now all 
this might have been and perhaps is truefof the Bi- 
shop. The instrument was well chosen, his duty 
was well accomplished, and he receives the reward 
of a faithful servant from his foreign masters, in a 
translation to the wealthy archbishopric ofBour- 
deaux. 

Again, where is Bishop Dubourg, of New-Or- 
leans ? He has resided in this heathen land his 
stated time, and having accomplished the duty 
prescribed to him, is translated to the Bishopric 
of Montauban, in France. 

And again, where is Bishop Kelly, of Rich- 
mond, Virginia ? He also sojourns with us until his 
duties to foreign masters are performed, and then 
is rewarded by promotion at home to the Bishop- 
ric of Waterford and Lismore. 

And where soon will be that busy, pompous Je- 
suit, who has been so often announced as passing 

13 



,150 APPENDIX. 

and repassing between Rome, Vienna, and the 
United States, Bishop England ? If report speaks 
truth, he is soon to be rewarded for his services 
in the cause of his foreign masters, with a Cardi- 
naVs hat* The following, from the Dublin Free- 
man's Journal, preceded by a nauseous mass of 
fulsome compliment, gives substance to the re- 
port : — " After escorting these ladies (some nuns) 
to Charleston, Dr. England proceeds, without de- 
lay, as Legate from the Pope to Hayti, over the 
ecclesiastical affairs of which republic he carries 
with him from the Holy See the most full and un- 
limited powers ; from which we confidently trust, 
ere long,, he will again return to Europe to receive, 
as some reward for all his labors and services, a 
Cardinal's hat; for, instead of receiving dignity 
from, should such an appointment take place, 
Dr. England will confer dignity upon the sacred 
purple." 

Now, in view of these instances of services in 
this country, rewarded by appointments in Europe, 
the question naturally occurs : What interest have 
these servants of a foreign despotism in the free 
institutions of this country 1 What sympathies 
with American liberty can foreigners have, edu- 
cated, as they have been in their own country, in 
the principles of despotic institutions, living but 
temporarily in this country, (whose entire political 
system is diametrically opposed to their whole 
education,) and looking forward, after their task 
is performed, to a recall to comfortable benefices 



APPENDIX. 151 

and high places of profit and honor, to rewards 
devised by Austria and the Pope, and meted out 
to their faithful advocates according to the zeal 
and devotion manifested to their interests ? What 
would be said of the Episcopalian, or Presbyte- 
rian, or Methodist, or Baptist clergy, were they 
announced as foreigners sent from England, who? 
after a short sojourn of active service in this coun- 
try, were known to be recalled and promoted irs 
their own country to be Bishops and dignified offi- 
cers under the British government ? 



Note D.— Page 61. 
Sanguinary spirit still existing in modern Popery. 

If any suppose that Popery has changed its in- 
tolerant character in modern times, we refer them 
to the following specimen of its spirit. It is Popery 
of the present day ; Popery of 1833. 

In the recent journals of Modena, in Italy, are 
articles signed by the Duke of Canosa, the lan- 
. guage of which knows no bounds. He justifies 
the St. Bartholomew's Massacre. He says, " when 
/a disease has made such progress that it cannot 
be cured by magnesia and calomel, to save life, 
recourse must be had to arsenic. If Charles IX. 
had recoiled from the massacre of the Huguenots, 
he would certainly have perished a few weeks af- 
ter upon the scaffold, as happened to the indulgent 



152 iPPfiNDlX. 

and compassionate Louis XVI. because he took 
an opposite course. He who in such a case has 
not the courage of a lion, and does not resolve on 
rigorous measures, is lost. The pusillanimous 
alone are ignorant of this truth." Such shocking 
sentiments, be it remembered, are published in a 
country where there is a censorship of the press : 
and they are therefore the language of the go- 
vernment. 

The Duke reasons like a true legitimate. The 
happiness and lives of the people, to any amount, 
are mere chaff compared with the happiness and 
life of that sainted bauble called a king. His rea- 
soning amounts to this : " better that thousands 
of the common people should perish by the bloodi- 
est butchery, than that the single life of one human 
being endowed with divine right to reign, should, 
like Lous XVI. perish on the scaffold." It is not 
necessary to uphold the shedding of royal blood, 
but there is a trick of kingcraft which ought to be 
exposed, because its influence is not unfeltin this 
country. The divine right to reign is first assum- 
ed, then the human being thus invested with power 
partakes of divinity, he becomes sacred^ and all 
the names and paraphernalia of idolatrous worship 
surround him. He becomes a God ; every word he 
utters, every step he takes, every action, however 
unimportant in any other human being, is invested 
in this earthly divinity with a sacred character. 
Does the god-king ride out, the whole country 
must know the important event ; is he married, the 



APPENDIX. 153 

whole nation keeps jubilee ; is he dead, the world 
is clad in mourning. The misfortunes of his off- 
spring are magnified and consecrated by all the 
arts of the imagination, by all the embellishments 
of romance. Is an illustration wanted ? Take a 
recent case. Look at the history of the Duchess 
de Berri, an infamous woman, notoriously profli- 
gate, of a character that in common life would 
condemn her to the neglect of the world, and cast 
her out of all society. But she is a princess, she 
has a spark of royal divinity that shines upon her 
brazen front, and the duped multitude bow in ado- 
ration before her. Her sufferings, her wanderings, 
her dress in the minutest particulars, her words, 
her looks, are the subject of sympathetic appeals 
to the compassion of the world ; ladies shed tears 
over the distresses of the unfortunate princess. 
Alas ! alas ! that royal blood should suffer ! And 
are we Hot influenced by this mawkish, morbid 
sympathy for suffering despots ? Where are our 
sympathies, when the interested statements of a 
government-controlled foreign press informs us of 
the struggles of the people against age-consecrat- 
ed oppression 1 Are they with the people ? Do we 
ever suspect the truth of the glowing details of the 
doings of the scandalous mob, the high- wrought ac- 
counts of outrage and rebellion of a wicked rabble 
against lawful authority, which circulate through 
our land the production abroad of pensioned wri- 
ters, of a licensed press, and those too without re- 
mark or explanation from our press ? What should 

13* ' 



154 APPENDIX. 

be the feelings of a true American? Where should 
be his sympathies, who has been nurtured in the 
air of liberty, who has learned from his father's lips 
the black catalogue of despotic wrongs which his 
ancestors suffered, and which were defended by 
all the tricks, and glosses, and arts of oppression? 
If any human being should feel quick sympathy 
with the struggles of the people, should examine 
with the greatest care the charges preferred against 
them and exercise a willing charity for their appa- 
rent or real excesses, and quick mistrust of all the 
doings, representations and fair speeches of des- 
potism, it is an American. 



Note E.— Page 62. 
Popery is organized throughout the World. 

This organization is asserted in the late procla- 
mation of the Pope to the Portuguese. In the ca- 
talogue of his complaints he says : " Neverthe- 
less, that which principally afflicts us is, that those 
acts and measures have evidently for their aim to 
break every bond of union with that venerable 
chair of the blessed Peter" (his own throne) 
" which Jesus Christ has made the center of uni- 
ty ; and thus the society of communion being once 
broken, to wound the church by the most perni- 
cious schism. In fact, how can there be unity in 
the body, when the members are not united to the 
head, and do not obey it ? 



appendix. . 165 

Note F.-Page 65. 

Immigration and our Naturalization Laic. 

The subject of immigration is one of those 
which demands the immediate attention of the na- 
tion, it is a question which concerns all parties : 
and if the writer is not mistaken in his reading of 
the signs of the times, the country is waking to a 
sense of the alarming evil produced by our natu- 
ralization laws. Let us war among ourselves in 
party warfare, with every lawful weapon that we 
can convert to our purpose. It is our birthright 
to have our own opinion, and earnestly to con- 
tend for it ; but let us court no foreign friends. 
Every American should feel his national blood 
mount at the very thought of foreign interference. 
While we welcome the intelligent and persecuted 
of all nations, and give them an asylum and a share 
in our -privileges, let us beware lest we admit to 
dangerous fellowship those who cannot and will 
not use our hospitality aright. That such may 
come, and do come, there is no reason to doubt. 
Consider the following testimony of an emigrant, 
given before a justice in Albany. He says that 
" in June last the parish officers paid the passages 
of himself, and about forty others of the same pa- 
rish, from Chatham to the city of Boston, in Ame- 
rica, on board the ship Royalist, Captain Parker, 
and that they landed in Boston in the month of 
July last — that the parish officers gave him thirty 



156 APPENDIX. 

shillings sterling in money, in addition to paying 
his passage — that he is now entirely destitute of 
the means of living, and is unable to labor, and 
prays for relief." 

v Now here are forty paupers cast upon our 
shores from one parish in England, and in five 
years they become citizens, entitled to vote ! ! Is 
there an American, of any party, who can believe 
that there is no danger in admitting to equal pri- 
vileges with himself such a class of foreigners ? 
A remedy to this crying evil admits of not a mo- 
ment's delay. At this moment the ocean swarms 
with ships crowded with this wretched population, 
bearing them from misery abroad to misery here. 
The expense incurred in this city (New- York) 
for the support of foreign paupers, it is well known, 
is enormous. In Philadelphia more than three- 
fourths of the inmates of their Alms-house are 
foreigners. Whole families have been known to 
come from on board ship and go directly to the 
Alms-house. In the Boston Dispensary there 
were the last year, (1834,) from two districts only, 
477 patients ; of these 441 were foreigners ! ! 
leaving but 36 of our own population to be pro- 
vided for. In the Boston Alms-house the fol- 
lowing returns show the increase of foreign pau- 
pers in five years : 
The year ending Sept. 30, 1829, Americans 395 

" " " " Foreigners 284 

The year ending Sept. 30, 1834, Americans 340 

" " « Foreigners 613 



APPENDIX. 157 

Thus we see that native pauperism has decreas- 
ed in five years, and foreign pauperism more than 
doubled. 

In Cambridge (Mass.) more than four-ffths of 
the paupers are foreigners. 
a The first and immediate step that should be ta- 
ken, is to press upon Congress, and upon the na- 
tion, instant attention to the naturalization 
laws. We must first stop this leak in the ship, 
through which the muddy waters from without 
threaten to sink us. If we mean to keep our 
country, this life-boat of the world, from founder- 
ing with all the crew, we must take on board no 
more from the European wreck until we have 
safely landed and sheltered its present freight. 
But would you have us forfeit the character of 
the country as the asylum of the world ? No ; 
but it is a mistaken philanthropy indeed that 
would attempt to save one at the expense of the 
lives of thousands ; that would receive into our 
families those dying with the plague. Our natura- 
lization laws were never intended to convert this 
land into the alms-house of Europe, to cover the 
alarming importation of every thing in the shape 
of man that European tyranny thinks fit to send 
adrift from its shores, nor so to operate as to 
surrender back all the blessings of that freedom 
for which our fathers paid so dear a price into the 
keeping of our enemies. No, we must have the 
law so amended that no foreigner who may 

COME INTO THE COUNTRY, AFTER THE PASSAGE 



158 APPENDIX. 

OF THE NEW LAW, SHALL EVER BE ALLOWED 
TO EXERCISE THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE. This 

alone meets the evil in its fullest extent. 

Who can complain of injustice in the enact- 
ment of such a law ? Not the native American^ 
he is not touched by it. Certainly not the foreign- 
er now in the country, whether naturalized or not ; 
it cannot operate against him. It would take 
away no right from a single individual in any 
country. This law would withhold a favor, not a 
right from foreigners, and from those foreigners 
only who may hereafter come into the country. 
If foreigners abroad choose to take ofFence at the 
law, we are not under obligations to consult their 
wishes, they need not come here. This favor, it 
should be understood, has repeatedly been abus- 
ed, and it is necessary, for the safety of our insti- 
tutions, in future to withhold it. The pressing dan- 
gers to the country from Popery, which I think 
I have shown not to be fictitious ; other visi- 
ble indications of foreign influence in the politi- 
cal horizon ; the bold organization of foreigners 
as foreigners in our elections — these all demand 
the instant attention of Americans, if they mean 
not to be robbed, by foreign intrigue, of their liber- 
ty and their very name. 



APPENDIX. 159 

Note G.— Page 71. 
One College at the West under Austrian influence. 

The following fact illustrates the dangerous, 
successful intriguing spirit of the Jesuits, and the 
culpable negligence of one of our state legisla- 
tures (that of Kentucky) which has thus siuTered 
itself to be the dupe of Popish artifice. St. Jo- 
seph's College, at Bardstown, Kentucky, was in- 
corporated by the State Legislature in 1824. The 
Bishop of Bardstown is Moderator, and five Priests 
are Trustees. And there is this provision in the 
charter: " The said trustees shall hold their sta- 
tion in said college one year only, at which time 
the said moderator shall have the power of elect- 
ing others, or the same, if he should think proper, 
and increase the number to twelve ; and this pow- 
er may be exercised by him every year thereafter, 
or his successor or successors to the Bishoprick ; 
and in case of the removal, resignation or death of 
either of the said trustees, his place may be sup- 
plied by an appointment that may be made by the 
said Bishop, or his successor or successors, who 
may also become moderators in the institution, 
and act and do as the said B. J. Flaget is empow- 
ered by this act to do." 

The Bishop of Bardstown, in a letter to a friend 
in Europe, dated February, 1825, says : "Our 
Legislature has just incorporated the college. The 
Bishops of Bardstown are continued perpetually 



160 APPENDIX. 

its moderators or rectors. 1 might have dictated 
conditions, which I could not have made more ad- 
vantageous or honorable ; and what is still more 
flattering is, that these privileges were granted al- 
most without any discussion, and with unanimity 
in both houses." 

Now the Pope, it is well known, appoints ail 
Bishops. Here then is one college in the country 
already placed in perpetuo under the exclusive 
control of the Pope, and consequently for an inde- 
finite period under that of Austria ! 



Note H.— Page 74. 

Glory-giving Titles. 

One of the plainest doctrines of American Re- 
publicanism, which is essentially democratic, is? 
that mere glory-giving titles, or titles of servility, 
are entirely opposed to its whole spirit. They are 
considered as one of those artificial means of king- 
craft by which it fosters that aristocratic, unholy 
pride in the human heart, which loves to domineer 
over its fellow-man, which loves artificial distinc- 
tion of ranks, a privileged class, and of course 
which helps to sustain that whole system of regal 
and papal usurpation which has so long cursed 
mankind. If such titles are to some extent still 
acknowledged in this country, they have either 
been thoughtlessly but unwisely used as mere 



APPENDIX, 161 

epithets of courtesy, or they are the remains of 
old deep-rooted foreign habits, which, in spite of 
the uncongenial soil to which they have been 
transplanted, still maintain a sort of withered ex- 
istence. It now, however, becomes a serious in- 
quiry whether this practice, hitherto seemingly 
unimportant, may not be attended with danger to 
the institutions of the country. For Popery, it ap- 
pears, is already taking advantage of this, as of all 
other weaknesses in our habits and customs, to in- 
troduce its anti-democratic system, and this, too, 
while it manifests in words great zeal in defence 
of democratic liberty. Let the democracy look 
well to this. 

Is it asked Jo what extent should titles or names 
of distinction be abolished throughout the land ? 
the answer is plain. Every title that merely desig- 
nates an office, is perfectly in accordance with our 
institutions ; such as President, Secretary, Senator, 
General, Commodore, &c. So are letters after a 
name which designate the office or membership in 
a society ; but titles of reverence, titles which im- 
ply moral qualities, such as Your Excellency, 
Your Honor, The Reverend, Rt. Reverend, Hon- 
norable, &c. and letters which imply moral or in- 
tellectual superiority, I think it must be conceded 
are now not only useless but dangerous. There 
needs no law to abolish these gewgaw appendages 
to a name ; they must be left to the good sense 
of the individual who uses them, to discontinue 
them ; and fortunately they generally belong to 

14 * 



262 APPENDIX. 

intellectual men, who have minds capable of dis- 
cerning the remote evils to which the practice leads* 
and patriotism enough to make a greater sacrifice 
than this occasion calls for to avert dangers which 
threaten their country. 

Will it be said that this is a little matter ? No- 
thing is of little consequence that may endanger, 
however remotely, the civil liberty of the country. 
Nay more, no practice is unworthy of reform, 
which, continued, may aid by its example in the 
surrender of religious liberty into the hands of 
Popery. 



Note I.— Page 84. 

Compulsory Baptism. 

Perhaps Father Baraga was thinking of the fa- 
cilities afforded in Spain, in the time of Ximenes? 
for administering baptism, when " Fifty thousand 
(50,000) Moors, under terror of death and torture, 
received the grace of baptism, and more than an 
equal number of the refractory w T ere condemned, 
of whom 2,536 were burnt alive." May our go- 
vernment long be " too free " for the enacting of 
such barbarity. 



APPENDIX. 163 

Note J. and K.— Page 9 3—95. 

Priests control the Mob. 

If farther proof were wanting of the fact of the 
supreme influence of the Catholic priests over the 
mob, it is opportunely furnished in the testimony 
on the trial of the rioters at Charlestown, (Mass.) 
Mr. Edward Cutter testified that the Lady Supe- 
rior, in an interview previous to the burning of the 
convent, thus threatened him ; she said, " the 
Bishop had 20,000 of the vilest (or boldest) Irish- 
men under his control, who would tear down the 
houses of Mr. Cutter and others; and that the 
selectmen of Charlestown might read the riot act 
till they were hoarse, and it would be of no use." 
But if any doubt is thrown over Mr. Cutter's 
testimony because he is a Protestant, hear what 
the Lady Superior herself testifies : " I told him, 
she says, that " the Right Reverend Bishop's in- 
fluence over ten thousand brave Irishmen might 
lead to the destruction of his property, and that of 
others." 

Here we have the startling fact, acknowledged 
in a court of justice by the Superior of the con- 
vent, that the Bishop has such influence over a 
mob of foreigners, that he can use them for ven- 
geance or restrain them at pleasure. The ques- 
tion that occurs is, how much stronger is it neces- 
sary for this foreign corps to become before it 
may prudently act offensively against our obnox- 



164 APPENDIX. 

ious Protestant institutions ? The fact is establish- 
ed, by Catholic testimony, that the Popish popula- 
tion is not an unorganized mob, but is moved by 
priestly leaders, Jesuit foreigners in the pay of 
Austria. They are ready to keep quiet, or to strike, 
as circumstances may render expedient. But, ex- 
clusive of other proof, another most important fact 
is rendered certain by this singular confession of 
the Lady Superior, and that is Roman Catholic 
interference in our elections. Jesuits are not in the 
habit of slighting their advantages, and the Bishop 
who can control ten or twenty thousand, or five 
hundred thousand men, as the case may be, for 
the purpose of destruction and riot, can certainly 
control the votes of these obedient instruments ! 
Will not American freemen wake to the apprehen- 
sion of a truth like this 1 



Note L.— -Page 95. 
Political interference of Popery. 

The kind of interference in the political affairs 
of other countries by the Sovereign of Rome, 
may be learned from the following extracts from 
the Pope's proclamation against Don Pedro, in 
which he thus speaks of Portugal. He laments 
the defection of " that kingdom, cited, until now, 
as a model of devotion and fidelity to the Catholic 



APPENDIX. 165 

faith, to the Holy See, and to the Roman Pontiffs, 
our predecessors ; a kingdom which, as is meet? 
has already felt it an honor to obey its Sovereigns, 
distinguished by the title of JWost faithful Kings. 
We confess that we could not at first believe what 
report and public rumor related upon enterprises 
so audacious ; but the unexpected return to Italy 
of him who represented us in the said kingdom as 
Apostolic Nuncio, and the most positive testimo- 
ny of many persons, soon oonvinced us that what 
had been previously announced to us was but 
too true. 

" It is then as certain as it is greatly to be de- 
plored, that the above-mentioned government has 
unjustly driven away him who represented our per- 
son and the Holy See, commanding him to quit 
the kingdom without delay. But, after so gross an 
insult offered to the Holy See, and to us, the au- 
dacity of these perverse men has been carried still 
further against the Catholic Church, against ec- 
clesiastical property, against the inviolable rights 
of the Holy See. Considering that all these mea- 
sures have been exercised almost at the accession 
of a new Power, and in consequence of a conspi- 
racy prepared beforehand, our mind is filled with 
horror, and we cannot refrain from tears. All the 
public prisons have been opened, and, after having 
let those who were detained there go forth, they 
have thrown into them, in their place, some of 
those of whom it is written, Touch not my Anoint- 
ed. Laymen have rashly arrogated to themselves 

14* 



166 APPENDIX, 

a power over sacred things ; they have proclaim- 
ed a general reform of the secular clergy, and of 
religious orders of both sexes." 

After enumerating various acts of rigor of the 
new government against those priests, monks, and 
other ecclesiastics, who had taken an active part 
in the civil war, the Pope continues: " For this 
reason, venerable brethren, we expressly proclaim 
that we absolutely reprobate all the decrees issued 
by the aforesaid government of Lisbon, to the great 
detriment of the Church, of its holy ministers, of 
the ecclesiastical law, and Holy See prerogatives ; 
we, therefore, declare them to be nidi and of no ef- 
fect, and express our most serious complaints 
against the audacious measures we have referred 
to ; we declare, that in exercising the duties of our 
office, and with God's help, we will oppose ourselves, 
as a wall for the House of Israel, and show ourselves 
in the combat at the day of the Lord, as the inte- 
rests of religion and the gravity of circumstances 
may require" 

He hopes this low rumbling of the thunders of 
the Vatican will prevent his " having recourse to 
those spiritual arms with which God has invested 
his apostolic ministry," namely, anathemas, curses 
of excommunication, &c. And these are not the 
records of doings of the dark ages, but are fresh 
from the papal throne, the acts of 1833, 



APPENDIX, 167 

Note M.— Page 9 6. 

If any suppose that Popery meddles not with 
civil matters in this country, let them peruse the 
following extract of a letter from one of their mis- 
sionaries : 

" Mr. Baraga to the Central Direction of the Leopold Foun- 
dation, dated L'Arbre Croche, October 10th, 1832. 

" * * On the 5th of August, after partaking 
the sacrament of confirmation, the Bishop called 
all the chiefs and head men of the mission, and 
made known to them some civil laws which he 
had made for the Ottowas. The Indians received 
these laws with much pleasure, and promised so- 
lemnly to obey them. The missionary and four 
chiefs are the administrators of these laws. 

" Frederick Baraga, Missionary.' 5 

Here is a specimen of the disposition of Popery 
to meddle in civil matters in this country, where it 
has the power ; the Bishop is the propounder, and 
the missionary one of the administrators of the 
civil laws. 



Note N.— Page 115. 

The poor, the illiterate, and the working classes 
the most deeply interested in quelling riot and 
disorder. 

I have elsewhere hinted at the danger to the 
stability of our institutions of the mob spirit which 



168 APPENDIX. 

has been manifested in different parts of the 
country. But I fear that the process of disorgan- 
ization, the gradual change which frequent riot 
necessarily works in the nature of government, has 
not been duly considered by those whom it most 
deeply, most vitally concerns ; I mean the hard- 
working, uneducated poor. Let me endeavor to 
trace this process. What is the proper effect of 
our democratic republican institutions upon the 
various classes into which human society must 
ever be divided ? How do they affect the condition 
of the rich and the poor, the educated and the il- 
literate ? Equality, the only practicable equality, 
is their result ; not that spurious, visionary equali- 
ty which would make a forced community of pro- 
perty, but that equality which puts no artificial 
obstacles in the way of any man's becoming the 
richest or most learned in the state ; which allows 
every man, without other impediment than the com- 
mon obstacles of human nature and the equal 
rights of his neighbor impose, to strive after wealth, 
and knowledge, and happiness. True Christian 
republicanism, by its benevolent and ennobling 
principles, impels the wealthy and the educated to 
use their talents for the benefit of the whole com- 
munity ; it prompts to acts of public spirit, to self- 
sacrifice, and to unwearied efforts to lessen the 
natural obstacles in the way of the poor and unedu- 
cated to competence and intellectual character, by 
affording them both employment and education. 
The kindness and benevolence thus shown to the 



APPENDIX. 169 

poor, beget, in this class of our citizens, industry 
and mental ^effort. They feel [that they are not 
like the proscribed of other countries ; they see that 
the way is equally open to all to rise to the same 
rank of independence in mind and condition, and 
they consequently are without the exciting causes 
of envy, and ill-will, and bitterness of feeling toward 
the wealthy and educated, which exist and produce 
these fruits in other and arbitrary governments. 
Society in its two extremes is thus knit together 
by a mutual confidence, and a mutual interest ; for 
causes beyond human control are ever varying 
the condition of men. He that is rich to-day may 
be poor to-morrow ; and thus there is a constant 
interchange, a mingling of ranks, which, like a 
healthful circulation in the natural body, begets 
soundness and vigor through the political body. 
The vicious and voluntarily ignorant being the on- 
ly portions of society naturally and justly excluded 
from the benefits of this system. 

Let us now look at the condition of these same 
classes under an arbitrary government. In Austria, 
for example, the poor and illiterate are considered 
as the natural slaves of the wealthij and learned. 
These classes are perpetually separated by the ar- 
tificial barrier of hereditary right ; the line of se- 
paration is distinctly drawn, and in all that relates 
to social intercourse there is an impassable gulf. 
There may be condescension on the one part, but 
no elevation on the other. High [birth, learning, v 
wealth, and polished manners are on the one side^ 



170 APPENDIX. 

strengthening the hands of the arbitrary power that 
sustains them ; on the other, low birth, ignorance, 
poverty, and boorishness, kept down by their in- 
trinsic weakness, generation after generation, in 
irretrievable subjection ; the upper classes know- 
ing that their own security is based upon the per- 
petuity of ignorance and superstition in the lower 
classes. Now, to make the change from republi- 
canism to absolutism, what means would an ar- 
bitrary power like Austria be most likely to devise? 
Would she not attain her object entirely by the 
creation on the one hand, in the wealth and talent 
of this country, a necessity for employing physical 
force to hold in subjection the poor and illiterate? 
and the production, on the other hand, of a class 
ignorant and unprincipled, and turbulent enough 
to need the very restraints the other class might 
be compelled to employ ? Are there any indica- 
tions of such a change in this country ? We have 
a daily increasing host of emigrants, a portion of 
the very class used to foreign servitude abroad. 
How could Austrian emissaries better serve their 
imperial master's interests, than by keeping these 
unenlightened men in the same mental darkness 
in which they existed in the countries from which 
they came, surrounding them here with a police of 
priests,*and shutting out from them the light which 
might break in upon them in this land of light, 
nourishing them for riot and turbulence at politi- 
cal meetings, and for bullying at the polls those of 
opposite political opinions ? And what would be 



APPENDIX. 371 

the effect of such a mode of proceedings upon that 
class who have acquired, by lives of honest indus- 
try and studious application, wealth, and know- 
ledge, and political experience ? Is not such a 
course calculated to drive them away from any 
participation in the politics of the country ? and is 
not such seditious conduct intended to produce 
this very result ? Will not men who have any 
self-respect, who have any sense of character, 
turn away and ask, with feelings of indignation, 
where is that intelligent, sober, orderly body of na- 
tive' 'mechanics and artizans who once composed 
the wholesome, substantial democracy of the coun- 
try, and on whose independence and rough good 
sense the country could always rely — that well-tried 
body of their own fellow-citizens, accustomed to 
hear and read patiently, and decide discreetly ? 
And when they see them associated with a rude 
set of priest-governed foreigners, strangers to the 
order and habits of our institutions, requiting us 
for their hospitable reception by conduct subver- 
sive of the very institutions which make them 
freemen ; when they see them become the dupes 
of the machinations of a foreign despotic power, 
refusing to be undeceived, and madly rushing to 
their own destruction, will they not, from motives 
of self-preservation, be willing to adopt any system 
of measures, however arbitrary, which will secure 
society from violence and anarchy ? When disgust 
at priest-guided mobs shall have alienated the 
minds of one class of the citizens from the other, 



172 APPENDIX. 

we have then one of the parties nearly formed, 
which is necessary for the designs of despotism in 
accomplishing the subversion of the republic. And 
the other party is still easier formed. The aliena- 
tion of feeling in the wealthier class, and their re- 
marks of disgust, may be easily tortured into con- 
tempt for the classes below them, and then the na- 
tural envy of the poor towards the rich will al- 
ways furnish occasions to excite to violence. 
When hostility between these two parties has 
reached a proper height, the signal from the arch 
jugglers in Europe to their assistants here, can 
easily kindle the> flames of civil strife. And then 
comes the dexterous change of systems. Frequent 
outrage must be quelled by military force, for the 
public peace must at all events be preserved, and 
the civil arm will have become too weak ; and thus 
commences an armed police, itself but the precur- 
sor of a standing army. And wjiich party will be 
the sufferer ? All experience answers that ivealth 
and talent are more than a match for mere brute 
force, for the plain reason that they can both pur- 
chase and direct it. The rich can pay for their 
protection, and soldiers belong to those who pay 
them. The man of talent is wanted to direct, and 
he also is retained by the rich. What then be- 
comes of the illiterate and laboring poor? Re- 
duced, after ineffectual, ill-concerted resistance, to 
the same state of perfect subjection that obtains 
in the "happy Austrian empire" It is the poor, 
then, the poor and ignorant, not the rich and learn- 



APPENDIX. 173 

ed, that have every thing of hope and liberty to 
losefrom the machinations of Austria. In a moral 
and intelligent Democracy, the rich and poor are 
friends and equals ; in a Popish despotism, the poor 
are in abject servitude to the rich. Let the work- 
ing-men, the laboring classes, well consider that 
their liberty is in danger, and can be preserved 
only by their encouragement of education and good 
order. 



Note O.— Page 125. 

Dangers from a riotous spirit, and the kind of 
treatment due from Protestant Americans to 
Catholic Emigrants. 

All the topics which grow out of this momen- 
tous subject of Popery as their prolific parent, are 
of absorbing national interest, but no one forces 
itself upon our consideration more imperiously at 
this moment than that which heads this note. For, 
unless I am greatly deceived, the waking up of 
this great nation's indignation, the shaking off of 
the lethargy which has so long held in unaccount- 
able stupor the senses of the people, which has 
shut their eyes and stopped their ears to the proofs 
of foreign conspiracy which every where surround 
them, the mighty gathering of all real patriots to 
the defence of their liberties, which the sounds of 

15 



174 APPENDIX. 

preparation from all quarters of the land but too 
strongly indicate, may be attended with effects 
disastrous to the cause of true liberty, may pro- 
duce, through excess or ill-regulated zeal, the evil 
which it is desirous to remedy ; for excess, even 
in favor of right principles, doubles the amount of 
the evil which it attempts to cure. Excess of all 
kinds, whether in thought, word, or action, (O 
that this could be impressed on every American 
heart !) is just so much gain to the side of Popery. 
I know not how prevalent is error on this point, 
but I am persuaded that it exists to an extent to 
make an American tremble for the permanency of 
our democratic institutions. 

Is there not a culpable acquiescence in the do- 
ings of a mob, if their violence is directed against 
some apparent or real irritating popular evil ? Is 
not the language of such acquiescence most dan- 
gerous ? It amounts to this : " Although we are 
averse to mob law, yet, on the whole, there are 
cases where the sin is venial, and the character of 
the nuisance it would abate justifies its violence." 
Now, once concede in a democratic community, a 
community which makes its own laws according 
to modes prescribed by itself, that an irresponsible 
minority may set at defiance these laws, and then 
let me ask where is government ? It is prostrated. 
It has become anarchy, and on the ruins of social 
order will arise another form of government more 
or less arbitrary, according to the more or less 
profound causes which effected the destruction of 



APPENDIX. 175 

the first. Of all forms of government, a truly de- 
mocratic government, while it is least obnoxious to 
the disturbing influences of mobs, can at the same 
time least of all bear the shocks of their turbu- 
lence. No events, therefore, that have occurred 
in the eventful history of the country, have so 
justly caused alarm for the stability of the govern- 
ment, as the spirit of mob violence which has 
lately manifested itself so frequently in our large 
cities. We should do well to remember that we 
have secret and artful enemies busily at work, who 
can and will take advantage of this unnatural state 
of the public feeling, and who will not fail secretly 
to administer fuel, in modes in which they are per- 
fectly familiar, to a diseased excitement so favor- 
able to their views. 

We have in the country a powerful religious-po- 
litico sect, whose final success depends on the 
subversion of these democratic institutions, and 
who have therefore a vital interest in promoting 
mob-violence. The saying of the German ambas- 
sador concerning the Papists, (quoted in the pre- 
fatory remarks,) is full of meaning, and should be 
constantly borne in mind ; it lets us into the se- 
cret of much of their manceuvering in this country; 
" they will be hammer or nails, they will persecute 
or be persecuted ." Where they are in power, they 
always persecute ; when not in power, and conse- 
quently unable to persecute, they will be sure to 
conduct, either in so outrageous, or mysterious, or 
deceptive a manner, as to rouse public indignation. 



176 APPENDIX. 

They will contrive ingenious modes of irritation 
that shall draw upon them popular vengeance, and 
then all meekness, and innocence, and resignation, 
raise the imploring cry of persecution. And how 
do they gain by these opposite modes ? If they are 
strong enough to persecute, they will destroy their 
opponents, in obedience to the openly avowed prin- 
ciples of their sect, by exile, by dungeons, and by 
death. If they themselves are persecuted in a Pro- 
testant community, (Protestant principles being in 
known direct opposition to persecution,) it is al- 
ways by an irreligious mob, acting in defiance of 
Protestant principle, and unsustained by public 
opinion, and the reaction of Protestant sympathy 
for the sufferers on any such occasion, more than 
makes amends, by its gifts, for the injury sustained. 
Thus the very virtues of Protestants, growing out 
of principles directly antagonist to Popish princi- 
ples, are made to work against Protestantism, and 
in favor of Popery. Do not Jesuits know the well 
known truth, that a sect is helped by a little perse- 
cution ? Do they not now act upon a knowledge of 
it ? And should not Americans replenish their me- 
mory with it also, that they may most rigidly abstain 
from disorder, and discountenance every disposi- 
tion to riot or violence ? Let them remember that 
the laws that govern them are their own laws, and 
they must not allow them to be broken. Let them 
suspect a Popish plot to rob them of their liberties 
in every disorderly assemblage, and by good order, 
by firmness of resistance to every temptation to 



APPENDIX. 177 

riot, defeat the designs of these worst enemies of 
Democracy. 

In close connection with this topic, is that of 
the kind of treatment ivhich Protestant Americans 
should shoiu to Catholic emigrants. On this sub- 
ject a volume could be written. I have space but 
for a few remarks. 

The condition of the Catholic emigrants that 
are daily pouring into the country from Germany 
and Ireland should awaken the strongest sympa- 
thies of Americans ; and in whatever aspect view- 
ed, should enlist all their feelings of benevolence. 
Reflect a moment who and what they are. We 
have read, and our own countrymen who have tra- 
veled and seen them in their native land, bear tes- 
timony to the effects upon the people of the grind- 
ing oppressions of Papal government; to the 
mental degradation, to the poverty, to the wretch- 
edness of the vassals of despotism. And as if to 
prove to us what we might doubt on the authority 
of others, so somber is their picture of human mi- 
sery, the very subjects of foreign oppression are 
brought and placed before our eyes. See yonder 
ship slowly furling her sails. She approaches the 
city. She casts her anchor. Who are those (hat 
crowd her decks ? With eager eyes they gaze in 
one direction. They see at length the far-famed 
land of liberty. Yes ; its name has been wafted 
even to their ears, and with the longings of cap- 
tives for freedom they have broken away from 
slaverv and sought the asylum of the oppressed. 

15* 



178 APPENDIX. 

They land upon our shores. Look, Americans, 
see before you the fruits of papal education ! of 
papal care of the bodies and minds of its children. 
Filthy and ragged in body, ignorant in mind, and 
but too often most debased in morals, they fill 
your streets with squalid beggary, and your high- 
ways with crime ; they are such a loathsome pic- 
ture of degradation, moral and physical, that you 
turn away in disgust from the sight:" But why 
should this be ? They are human beings, although 
oppression has blotted out their reason, and con- 
science, and thought. They are the progeny of Po- 
pery ; they are the victims of its iron despotism. 
It is Popery that has reared them up in its own ca- 
verns of superstition. They exhibit before you the 
blighting effects of this scourge of the earth. It is 
Popery that has filled their minds with puerile fa- 
bles, closed their mental eyes in the darkness of 
ignorance, fleeced them of their property by sys- 
tematic robbery, kept them from the knowledge of 
their natural rights as men to liberty of conscience 
and of opinion, extorted an abject obedience to 
their fellow-men, to blasphemous usurpers of the 
prerogatives of Deity. Their ignorance is their 
lasting, fatal curse ; their reason and conscience 
stifled at their birth, they are cast upon our care 
mere human machines, for the fell usurpers of 
God's power have torn out of them their very 
minds. To think for themselves, that inalienable 
right of a rational being, is rebellion against their 
priest ; they read not, they understand not our 



APPENDIX. 179 

charter of liberty. They love liberty, indeed, but 
what shape has liberty to men without minds? 
What perception of light has a sightless eye? Their 
liberty is licentiousness, their freedom strife and 
debauchery. 

And now with what emotions should Protes- 
tants look on these suffering, deluded men ? In 
what channel should their sympathies flow ? They 
have already been beaten to the dust by tyranny. 
Is it for freemen to follow up the cruel blow of fo- 
reign tyrants ? They have been brutalized by ne- 
glect ; shall they be now hunted by proscription ? 
Shall no Christian effort be made to light up again 
in their darkened bosoms the extinguished spark of 
humanity ? They are followed into our habita- 
tions ; yes, Americans, they are pursued into your 
own asylum of liberty by their foreign oppres- 
sors, who, like hungry wolves, have ventured with 
unhallowed feet into the very sanctuary of free- 
dom to grasp again their scarcely escaped prey. 
And have Americans no compassion ? Have they 
no courage ? Will they not protect the oppressed ? 
Will they not interpose between them and their 
priestly oppressors, and say to the latter, " Stand 
off ; this is a land of freedom ; these men are 
now American citizens ; — they have a right to 
American education ; to republican education ; to 
Bible education ; they have a right to the know- 
ledge that they owe no allegiance to priests ; that 
here there are no forbidden books, that knowledge 
here is not meted out in scanty drops, to serve 



180 APPENDIX. 

the purposes of power-grasping despots, but is 
spread out before them wide and deep as the 
ocean ; that American laws protect them from ec- 
clesiastical as well as civil proscription, from ec- 
clesiastical as well as civil extortion; that they 
owe no obligation to pay an arbitrary tax of bi- 
shop or priest ; that they have a right to know the 
amount, and the manner of disbursement, of every 
cent they are called on to contribute in church as 
well as state?" 

Will not Americans teach them these truths, 
and aid them to break the chains with which fo- 
reign tyrants have bound them ? or will they com- 
pel them, by proscription and persecution, or un- 
feeling neglect, to clan together around their 
priests, because deserted by those who should, 
and who alone can undeceive and enlighten them ? 
In the one case there is hope of incorporating 
them into the American republican family as use- 
ful fellow-citizens. In the other, there is the cer- 
tainty of perpetuating a distinct foreign and hos- 
tile interest in the country, to distract its councils, 
to sully the peaceful character of its institutions, 
and finally to aid in the complete destruction of 
this strong hold, the last hope of Freedom, 



— " but once put out thy (light,) 

" Thou cunning' st pattern of excellent nature, 
" 1 know not where is she Promethean heat 
" That can thy light relume." 



APPENDIX. 181 

Note P.— Page 129. 
Both political Parties intrigue for Catholic votes. 

Let neither political party throw upon his anta- 
gonist the exclusive odium of courting this fo- 
reign, priest-disciplined band. There are some 
of both parties who must hide their heads with 
shame, when real Americans, the patriots of the 
country, disregarding party name, shall turn their 
indignant eyes upon this lurking enemy of liberty, 
and shall apprehend the reality of this foreign con- 
spiracy. Is either political party disposed to up- 
braid the other with tampering with Popery, or to 
congratulate itself that it has kept its own gar- 
ments unspotted from the crime of this indirect 
treason ? If either thus flatters itself, let it be 
dumb ; let guilt stop the utterance of both. 
Both are deplorably, notoriously guilty. This is a 
truth that cannot and will not be denied. Both 
have bargained with these organized vassals of a 
foreign power. Both, in their eager recklessness 
to triumph over each other, have aided foreign des- 
potism to prostrate at its feet the liberties of their 
country, the liberties of the world. "All parties, 
religious and political, are suffering, and have yet 
much more to suffer from the evils already produced 
by their blind folly, by this their culpable servility 
to priest-governed foreigners, their cowardly back- 
wardness in not daring to drag into the light this 



182 APPENDIX. 

covert treason, because, forsooth, it comes in a sa- 
cred garb, their wretchedly loose notions of tole- 
rance, and charity, and liberality ; their shameful 
disregard of the consequences of their bargain- 
ings. And is it indeed come to this I A nation 
of Protestant freemen, nurtured in Protestant 
principles, the only true principles of liberty, 
principles wrested from tyranny by the persevering 
valor of their fathers, the result of the intellectual, 
aye, and physical combats of centuries — the fruits 
of obstinately contested struggles with despotism, 
and superstition, and bigotry — struggles of ages 
against the united intrigues of kingcraft and priest- 
craft ; Americans, thus emancipated, having enjoy- 
ed the peaceful fruits of these blood-earned truths 
for two centuries, at length grow careless of their 
treasure ; they sport with their liberty, as if it were 
nothing worth ; they grow weary of guarding their 
happiness, they sleep on their posts, they settle 
down into quiet security. They have ships, and 
forts, and arms, and brave hearts to defend their 
shores, and so there is no danger— all is peace, for 
the battle has long since been won, they can now 
safely doff their armor, there is no further need of 
the watchings of the camp. Our enemies, they 
say, have in truth become our friends ; Kings are 
now Republican, and the Pope, yes, the Pope (his 
bulls and proclamations to the contrary notwith- 
standing) we hope and believe has turned a Pro- 
testant Republican, at least in this country. Let 
us be generous, say these descendants of ever- 



APPENDIX. 183 

jealous rises ; let us invite our former foes to par- 
take of our hospitality. How noble the senti- 
ment ! How will the world applaud ! Let us show 
an example of liberality unparalleled. The invi- 
tation is accepted, and they flock in countless 
thousands to our shores ; a motley band, the op- 
pressor and the oppressed together, and their re- 
lations to each other too unchanged. They have 
needed no Trojan horse to hide them from our 
too credulous eyes ; we lead them openly into the 
midst of us. They parade our streets with fo- 
reign banners, already they flaunt them in our faces 
in derision. They even threaten us with their ven- 
geance, and we cower beneath their frown. Yes, 
we plead with them to spare us, we thank them 
for restraining their rod, we humbly confess the 
sins of our ancestors ; we tell them our fathers 
were bigoted and fanatical, they were too preju- 
diced against these our regal and papal friends. 

We, their children, grown more liberal, will 
show our freedom from narrow prejudices ; we 
will make amends for past offences ; our papal 
friends shall be received with open arms ; we will 
even urge them to be the umpires in our family 
quarrels ; we will beseech them to educate our 
children in their foreign principles of passive obe- 
dience ; we will build for them their fortresses on 
our own soil, to attack our own strong hold, and 
then we will trust to their mercy ; we shall then 
have delivered up to them all the keys of our 
house, and what will remain for us but to bow our 



184 APPENDIX. 

necks beneath the foot of the Pope, and asking 
absolution for our own sins, and our fathers' sins 
of long rebellion against his rightful sovereignty, 
humbly beg a legal charter for our country, and a 
consecrated king for our throne ? e/ 



Note R.— Page 130. 

Popish experiment on the Military of the Country. 

The experiments of Popery, in various parts of 
the country, on the ignorance, or credulity, or 
apathy of the people, are every day, I might say 
every hour, more manifest, and they are prosecut- 
ed with a boldness, with an audacious defiance 
of American habits, and the feelings of Ameri- 
can republicanism, truly astonishing. Yet, upon 
reflection, is it so astonishing that a tyranny of 
such inexhaustible resources of cunning and arti- 
fice, backed by the treasures and the open encou- 
ragement of the arbitrary governments of Europe, 
should be more than ordinarily bold? For if suc- 
cess attends the advance of these arch intriguers 
against our Protestant habits and institutions, high 
honors and pecuniary rewards await them at 
home : if detection at any time overtakes them, 
from the sudden waking of their victim, and his 
restive efforts to break off the bands that they 
would, spider-like, softly bind upon him, they have 
a retreat from punishment in their own country. 



APPENDIX. 18$ 

A new experiment, another step forward in the 
inarch against our freedom, (and to all appearances, 
at present, a successful one,) has been tried at the 
West, at St. Louis, in the consecration of the Po- 
pish cathedral. The account is from a Popish 
journal, called the Catholic Telegraph. They 
shall have the benefit of their own recital. 

"The cathedral of St. Louis is 134 feet long, 
by 84 wide. There are 8 rows of pews, 25 in 
each row, calculated to contain at least 8,000 
persons. There are two magnificent colonnades 
at opposite sides in the body of the church, con- 
sisting of five massive pillars of brick, elegantly 
marbled, and each four feet in diameter. 

" The altar is of stone. It is only temporary, 
and will soon be superseded by a superb marble 
altar, which is hourly expected from Italy. 

" The church, it is said, has already cost 
$42,000. It is presumed that about $18,000 
more will be required to finish it, according to the 
original and magnificent design of its founders ; 
so that the entire cost of the building and its furni- 
ture cannot be less than $60,000. 

" The consecration took place on the Sabbath, 
October 26, 1834. 

" At an early hour, 7 A. M. on the day of con- 
secration, four Bishops, twenty-eight Priests, 
twelve of whom were from twelve different na- 
tions, and a considerable number of young aspi- 
rants to the holy ministry, making the entire ec- 
clesiastical corps amount to fifty or sixty, were 

16 



186 APPENDIX. 

habited in their appropriate dresses. As soon as 
the procession was organized, the pealing of three 
large and clear-sounding bells, the thunder oj 'two 
pieces of artillery raised all hearts, as well as our 
own, to the Great Almighty Being. 

" When the holy relics were moved towards 
their new habitation, where they shall enjoy an 
anticipated resurrection — the presence of their God 
in his holy tabernacle, the guns fired a second 
salute. We felt as if the soul of St. Louis, Chris- 
tian, Lawgiver and Hero, was in the sound, and 
that he again led on his victorious armies in the 
service of the God of Hosts, for the defence of his 
religion, his sepulcher, and his people- 

" When the solemn moment of the consecra- 
tion approached, and the Son of the living God 
was going to descend, for the first time, into the 
new residence of his glory on earth, the drums 
beat the reveille, three of the star-spangled banners 
were lowered over the balustrade of the sanctuary, 
the artillery gave a deafening discharge^ 

" The dedication sermon was preached by the 
Bishop of Cincinnati. During the Divine Sacrifice, 
two of the military stood with drawn swords, one 
at each side of the altar; they belonged to a 
guard of honor formed expressly for the occasion. 
Besides whom, there were detachments from the 
four militia companies of the city, the Marions, 
the Grays, the Riflemen, and the Cannoneers 
from Jefferson Barracks, stationed at conve- 
nient distances around tl\e church. 



APPENDIX. 187 

" Well and eloquently did the Rev. Mr. Abell, 
pastor of Louisville, observe in the evening dis- 
course, alluding to his own and the impressions 
of the clergy and laity, who were witnesses to the 
scene ; Fellow-Christians and Fellow-citizens ! I 
have seen the flag of my country proudly floating 
at the mast-head of our richly-freighted merchant- 
men ; I have seen it fluttering in the breeze at the 
head of our armies ; but never, never did my heart 
exult as when I this day behold it for the first 
time bow before its God ! Breathing from infancy 
the air which our artillery had purified from the 
infectious spirit of bigotry and persecution, it 
would be the pride of my soul to take the brave 
men by the hand, by whom these cannons were 
served. But for these cannons, there would be no 
home for the free, no asylum for the persecuted." 

What are the reflections of an American on an 
occurrence like this 1 What must they be to one 
who has ever felt his pride of country stir 
within him, when in foreign lands he has beheld 
the degraded slaves of despotism bow in like 
manner before the altars and idols of heathenish 
superstition, awed into seeming reverence by the 
military array which always accompanies the 
imposing ceremonial of the Popish church ? But 
the military were only a guard of honor ! Yes ; 
this is the soft name given to this despotic chain, 
the musical sound to charm us away from scruti- 
nizing it ; and it will be sufficient, doubtless, to 
drown^its harsher clanking in our torpid ears, 



ISS APPENDIX. 

The guard of honor, that universal appendage 
of kings and sacred despots, is a serviceable 
band. It not only helps to swell a procession by its 
numbers, but with the glitter of its arms, and ac- 
coutrements, and gay banners, it adds splendor to 
the pageant of a heathen ritual. But, reader, it 
has an essential duty to perform. Its duty is to 
enforce the ceremonies of worship upon- all 
present. Do you doubt this duty of the guard 
of honor ? The w r riter will give his own expe- 
rience of the duties of the guard of honor. I was 
a stranger in Rome, and recovering from the de- 
bility of a slight fever, I was walking for air and 
gentle exercise in the Corso, on the day of the ce- 
lebration of the Corpus Domini. From the houses 
on each side of the street were hung rich tapes- 
tries and gold embroidered damasks, and towards 
me slowly advanced a long procession, decked 
out with all the heathenish paraphernalia of this 
self-styled church. In a part of the procession a 
lofty baldichino, or canopy, borne by men, was 
held above the idol, the host, before which, as it 
passed, all heads were uncovered, and every knee 
bent but mine. Ignorant of the customs of heath- 
enism, I turned my back to the procession, and 
close to the side of the houses in the crowd, (as I 
supposed unobserved,) I was noting in my tablets 
the order of the assemblage. I was suddenly 
aroused from my occupation, and staggered by a 
blow upon the head from the gun and bayonet of a 
soldier, which struck off my hat far into the crowd, 



APPENDIX 189 

Upon recovering from the shock, the soldier, with 
the expression of a demon, and his mouth pouring 
forth a torrent of Italian oaths, in which il diavolo 
had a prominent place, stood with his bayonet 
against my breast. I could make no resistance, I 
could only ask him why he struck me, and receive 
in answer his fresh volley of unintelligible impreca- 
tions, which having delivered, he resumed his place 
in the guard of honor, by the side of the officiat- 
ing Cardinal. 

Americans will not fail to observe in the pre- 
cious extract of the discourse in which the priest 
gives vent to his feelings of exultation upon see- 
ing our national flag, the star-spangled banner, 
humbled in the dust before the Pope, that with the 
cunning of his craft he flatters the soldiery, and in 
a sermon professedly to the God of Peace, and 
in dedicating a temple to his name, he is inspired 
with no loftier feelings of soul than this, " it would 
be the pride of my soul to take the brave men 
by the hand] by whom these cannons were served." 
Why ? Is it such a brave act to touch off a can- 
non ? Or was the imagination of the priest revel- 
ing in the dream of seeing the military power of 
the country, at a future day, at the beck and ser- 
vice of the Pope, and his Austrian master ? 



16* 



190 APPENDIX. 



THE MASK THROWN ASIDE. 

A charge of hostility to American institutions, 
against any sect or class in the community, is a 
very serious one, and only requires evidence to 
support it, to draw upon all its doings the watch- 
ful eye of American freemen. Is it asked, what 
evidence should you think sufficiently strong to 
substantiate the charge ? I answer, the general 
principles of the sect would be sufficient, but its 
own declarations of hostility would certainly sub- 
stantiate the charge. If a Presbyterian journal, in 
commenting on the trial of the rioters in Charles- 
town, should make remarks like the following, the 
evidence would doubtless be considered com- 
plete. 

"A system of government which admits a feeling of alarm, 
in the execution of the laws, from the vengeance of the 
mob, which Mr. Austin " (the prosecuting attorney) "dis- 
tinctly allows to be the case— a vengeance exhibited by 
letters to the public officers, and threats to the public au- 
thorities — may be very fine in theory, very jit for imitation 
on the part of those who seek the power of the mob in contra- 
distinction to justice and the public interest, but it is not of a 
nature to invite the reflecting part of the world, and shows at 
least that it has evils* A public officer in England, who 
would publicly avow such a fear of executing his duty and 
carrying into effect the law of the realm, ought and would 
be thrust out of office by public opinion. This one fact is 
condemnation of the system of American* institutions, 
confirmed lately by numerous other proofs." 

Now, could hostility to our institutions be more 

strongly expressed ? and were Presbyterians, or 

any other Protestant sect, thus boldly to avow its 



APPENDIX. 191 

political antipathies, every political journal would 
seize upon this evidence of treason, and trumpet 
it through the whole country. Why then are they 
now silent ? This treason is actually uttered ; nor 
is it less humiliating, or less dangerous, that it is 
flung in our faces by a set of foreigners in the em- 
ployment and pay of a foreign government, in- 
stead of native citizens. The very wwds I have 
quoted are from the Catholic Telegraph, a Roman 
Catholic journal, edited and published at Cincin- 
nati. Let it be borne in mind too, that a Catholic 
journal is under the supervision of the Bishops, 
who exercise a rigid censorship over it ; that it 
speaks the'authorized sentiments of the sect ; and 
we shall then perceive something of the importance 
to be attached to these anti-republican declara- 
tions. They are indeed a precious, an invalua- 
ble testimonial to the People, of the duplicity of 
their professed friends. Every where in the land 
hitherto, Papists have been loudest in professions 
of attachment to American republican institutions. 
They have now thrown off the mask. They un- 
blushingly declare that " our system of govern- 
ment, though very fine in theory, is not of a nature 
to invite the reflecting part of the world ; " in short, 
that it is an experiment that has failed : that " Ame- 
rican institutions stand condemned by a single fact 
in the trial in Boston, and by numerous other 
proofs." And what has brought out this precious 
confession ; what has occurred to make it a fit 
time to lay aside the disguise in which they have 



392 APPENDIX. 

till now deceived the democracy of the country ? 
What has produced this sudden revolution in their 
opinion of our form of government ? Let us look 
into this matter. 

A body of native citizens is excited to indigna- 
tion by rumors (whether true or false alters not 
the case) that an act of foul play, such as the his- 
tory of those nuisances (convents) in all coun- 
tries have abundantly furnished, had occurred in 
the Charlestown Nunnery. This mob, instead of 
being met with efforts to appease it by immediate 
explanation, as would have been the case in any 
Protestant seminary in the land, (for Protest- 
ants have no secret mysteries in their discipline,} 
this mob, I say, is kept for days in an excited state, 
by mysterious manceuvering on the part of the Ca- 
tholics, and by irritating threats from the Superior 
of the Convent, that 20,000 foreigners, under the 
orders of the Bishop, would take vengeance upon 
the citizens if they dared to commit any injury 
upon the Convent, and this threat was uttered in 
sight of Bunker's hill Under this provocation the 
outrage was committed. And is it a matter of sur- 
prise? I know of no one who justifies the illegal 
violence in burning the Convent, but I unhesitat- 
ingly say, that the feeling of indignation which ani- 
mated the populace, was a just and proper feeling. 
It was roused by the belief that a young and help- 
less female had been illegally and cruelly abducted 
from her friends, and subjected to a secret tyran- 
nical punishment. The feeling, I say, under this 



APPENDIX. 193 

belief, was not only honorable to the Charlestown- 
ians, but, had they viewed such an outrage with in- 
difference, thev would have shown themselves un- 
worthy of American citizens. Their error (and it 
cannot be defended, however it may be palliated 
by the gross insult which they received) consisted 
in suffering their just indignation to flow in an il- 
legal channel, and instead of rallying round the 
laws, and strengthening them by a strong expres- 
sion of public opinion at a special meeting of citi- 
zens, they leaped the bounds of law and committed 
a crime which the Papists are trying every possible 
means to cause to react in their favor. But allow- 
ing that no palliating circumstances attended the 
act of the rioters, that no excuse could be pleaded 
for them as acting under the impulse of the most 
stinging insult that could be given to any people 
by a foreigner ; what have these acts to do with 
our " system of government," or with " American 
institutions 1" In England, forsooth, they manage 
things better. There are never riots in England ! 
London, Manchester, Bristol, I suppose were 
never agitated by riots ! Paris, Lyons, Marseil- 
les, Nismes, St. Petersburg, Brussels, Frankfort, 
Rome, Constantinople ; none of these places, under 
various systems of government, are ever witnesses 
to riots ! But this Popish enemy to our institutions 
may say, it is not the riot, but the threatening let- 
ters sent to the prosecuting attorney to intimidate 
him in his duty, that tells against the government. 
Indeed ; and who wrote the letters 1 Is it quite cer- 



194 APPENDIX. 

tain that they were not the production of some Je- 
suit, to fan an excitement which was so likely to be 
turned to the advantage of his schemes ? Threat- 
ening letters are much in use in a certain Catholic 
country called Ireland, under a monarchical system 
of government. But suppose these letters were 
not written by Jesuits, but were the production of 
some wicked or thoughtless person, what then ? 
Is our form of government the cause of the writing 
of anonymous threatening letters ? Would any 
other form of government prevent this evil, of so 
alarming magnitude in the eyes of the Catholic 
Telegraph ?• Can it be prevented in England, or in 
any other form of government in the world 1 Yes 
there is one government which could probably 
prevent it. It is one in which the Inquisition is 
established, and by means of which, aided by the 
confessional, all that is considered necessary for 
the good of the church could be brought to light, 
or rather to the ears of those most interested in 
knowing all secrets that bear upon their own pow- 
er. How soon we shall be prepared for such a 
change of government to suit the designs of these 
busy foreign emissaries, depends on the continu- 
ance of the character for sagacity, intelligence, and 
virtue of the American people. 

Whatever doubts some may have hitherto had 
with regard to the existence of a foreign conspiracy 
in the country, I think the case is now become too 
plain to need further proof. Indeed, so bold are 
these foreign emissaries in the utterance of their 



APPENDIX. 195 

anti-republican dogmas, so unblushing in their at- 
tacks upon our institutions, that we are often led 
to exclaim, what does this mean ? Are these men 
fools, or madmen ? or are they so strong in their 
support from abroad, that they feel secure in 
bearding American freemen in their own homes ? 
The latter supposition alone satisfactorily ex- 
plains their conduct. Austria is now playing a 
desperate game against liberty, for the safety of 
her own throne, and for that of her allies. It is the 
last hazard, and her object is gained if she can de- 
stroy the influence of our prosperity upon the peo- 
ple of Europe, a prosperity the natural result of 
our popular free institutions ; and this latter object 
is effected, if, by any means, no matter how, riot and 
disorder can be produced in this country, to be point- 
ed at as the effect of republican government. Ame- 
ricans ! Friends of liberty ! Friends of order ! exa- 
mine this subject, and decide with your usual saga- 
city and discretion. You have a busy, a crafty, a 
powerful, a dangerous set of foreign leaders con- 
trolling and commanding a foreign population, 
ignorant and infatuated, intermixed with your own 
population, and who, at a single signal from the 
Pope or from Metternich, when the cause of des- 
potism shall require the deed, can spread disorder 
and riot through all your borders. 

Shrink not, Americans, from looking at the 
truth. You may boast of your peace and prosperi- 
ty : you hold them both, at this moment, at the mer- 
cy of Austria ! She has a disciplined band of fo- 



196' APPENDIX* 

reigners in the midst of you, who, in any season of 
excitement, she can make to fill your streets and 
dwellings with fear and confusion. She may not 
think it prudent or expedient just now to exercise 
her power, but she has the power, through Popish 
priests, who hold in check, at their pleasure ? the ele- 
ments of discord, and whose favor you are com- 
pelled humbly to conciliate as the price of your 
tranquillity. And this power is daily increasing^ 
not merely by foreign immigration, and foreign 
money, but, with the deepest shame be it spoken, 
by the assistance, direct and indirect, of Protestant 
Republican Americans, who y with a facility most 
marvelous, fall into every snare and pleasant bait- 
ed trap that Popery spreads for them, 



* # * As the last sheet was printing* an article of 
intelligence was received, bearing importantly on 
the subject of this volume. Bishop England, the 
busy Jesuit whom I have had occasion before to 
notice, has just put forth an address to his Diocese 
at Charleston, on his return from Europe, from 
which we make the following extracts : 

44 During my absence I have not been negligent 
of the concerns of this Diocese. I have endea- 
vored to interest in its behalf several eminent and 
dignified personages whom I had the good fortune 
to meet ; and have continued to impress ivith a con- 
viction of the propriety of continuing their gene- 



appendix:. 197 

r~ 

rous aid, the administration of those societies 
from which it has previously received valuable 
succor. In Paris and at Lyons I have con- 
versed with those excellent men who manage 
the affairs of the Association for propagating 
the Faith. This year their grant to this Dio- 
cese has been larger than usual. I have also 
had opportunities of communication with some 
of the Council which administers the Aus- 
trian Association ; they continue to feel an in- 
terest in our concerns. The Propaganda in 
Rome, though greatly embarrassed, owing to the 
former plunder of its funds by rapacious infidels, 
has this year contributed to our extraordinary ex- 
penditure ; as has the holy father himself, in the 
kindest manner, from the scanty stock which con- 
stitutes his private allowance ; but which he eco- 
nomizes to the utmost for the purpose of being able 
to devote the savings to works of piety, of charity, 
and of literature." 

" The prelates of the Church of Ireland, are 
ready, as far as our hierarchy shall require their 
co-operation, to give to them their best exertions 
in selecting and forwarding from amongst the nu- 
merous aspirants to the sacred ministry that are 
found in the island of saints, (Ireland,) a suffi- 
cient number of those properly qualified to supply 
our deficiencies. I have had very many applica- 
tions, and accepted a few, who, I trust, have been 
judiciously selected" 

We have here additional confirmation, if any 
17 



198 APPENDIX. 

were wanted, that in countries where Church and 
State are closely united, and where consequently 
every religious association (totally unlike our 
religious associations, which have no connection 
with the government,) is directly connected with 
political objects, there is a great and special effort 
making to effect certain objects in the United 
States. We have no less than three great socie- 
ties, all formed to operate on this country. THEY 
say religiously* but let Americans, who know 
that Austria makes no movement which is not in- 
tended for political effect, judge whether religious 
benevolence towards this benighted land, or a 
deeper and more earthly feeling of political self- 
preservation prompts her " continued feeling of 
interest in our concerns" 



The rules of the Leopold Foundation, the 

LETTER OF BlSHOP FeNWICK, OF OHIO, TOiTHE 

Emperor of Austria, and Prince Met- 
ternich's answer, are appended. 

Rules of the institution erected under the name 
of the Leopold Foundation, for aiding Catho- 
lic missions in America by contributions in 
the Austrian empire. 

1 . The objects of the institution under the name 
of the Leopold Foundation are, a) To promote 
the greater activity of Catholic missions in Ameri- 
ca ; b) To edify Christians by enlisting them in 
the |work of propagating the Church of Jesus 
Christ in the remote parts of the earth; c) To 
preserve in lasting remembrance her deceased 
Majesty Leopoldina, Empress of Brazil, born 
Archduchess of Austria. 

2. The means selected to attain these ends, 
are Prayer and Jllms. 

3. Every member of this religious institution 
engages daily to offer one Pater and Ave, with the 
addition : " St. Leopold ! pray for us," and 
every week to contribute a crucifix ; and thus by 
this small sacrifice of prayer and alms, to concur 
in the great work of promoting the true Faith. As 
however everyone is free to enroll himself in this 
society, he may also leave it at pleasure. 



208 APPENDIX. 

4. Every ten members shall appoint one of 
their number a Collector, to receive the weekly 
alms. The collector shall see that the small num- 
ber of his company, after the death or removal of 
any, is filled up. The alms collected shall be paid 
monthly, by the collector, to the parish minister 
of his district. 

5. Every parish minister shall pay over, as op- 
portunity offers, the alms collected in the manner 
prescribed, to the deacon, (in Hungary the vice 
arch deacon,) fand he to his most reverend ordina- 
riate. 

6. If any one intends a greater sum for this pi- 
ous end and that to be paid at once, his alms may 
be given either to the parish minister, with his own 
inscription inserted in the rubric designed, or to the 
deacon, (or g vice deacon,) or immediately to| the 
most reverend ordinariate. 

7. The most illustrious and reverend lords bi- 
shops of the whole empire are fully authorized to 
forward the alms thus obtained, from time to time, 
to the central direction of this religious institution, 
at Vienna. 

8. The central direction at Vienna undertakes 
the grateful office of carrying into effect this pious 
work, under the protection of his most sacred ma- 
jesty, and in connection with Frederick Ilese, now 
Vicar General of the Cincinnati bishopric in North 
America, and of employing the funds in the most 
efficacious manner to promote the glory of God 
and true faith in Jesus Christ ; so that the alms 



APPENDIX. 201 

collected by means of the most reverend ordina- 
riates, or those sent immediately to them, shall be 
conscientiously applied, and in the most economi- 
cal manner, to the urgent wants of American mis- 
sions as they are made known by authentic ac- 
counts and careful investigation. 

9. The central direction will see that all the 
members of the society, for their spiritual conso- 
lation and in reward for their pious zeal, shall be 
constantly informed of the progress and fruits of 
their munificence, as well as of the State of the 
Catholic religion in America, according to the ac- 
counts received. 

10. The Leopold Foundation being a private 
religious institution, the central direction will so- 
lemnly celebrate the feast of the immaculate con- 
ception of the Blessed Virgin, the universal patro- 
ness of all religious assemblies, as the feast of the 
Foundation ; but will also celebrate the feast of 
St. Leopold Marchion, the given name of the 
Empress Leopoldina and special patroness of this 
institution ; and also every year on the 11th De- 
cember, (the anniversary day of the death of Leo- 
poldina, Empress of Brazil,) it will see that the so- 
lemn mass for the dead be said for the repose of 
her soul and all the souls of the deceased patrons 
and benefactors of the institution called by her 
name, all the members being invited to unite their 
pious prayers with the prayers of the Direction. 

11. His Holiness Pope Leo XII, eleven days 
before his most pious death, having declared his 

17* 



$02 APPENDIX. 

approbation of the institution (which must serve as 
a great incitement to all good christians,) did grant 
to its members large indulgences, in an express 
letter, the publication of which, being graciously 
permitted by his majesty on the 14th of April, was 
made by the most reverend ordinariates, to wit : 
" full indulgence to each member on the day he 
joins the society, also on the 8th December, also 
on the day of the feast of St. Leopoldina, and once 
a month if through the former month he shall have 
daily said a Pater and Ave, and the words : Sancte 
Leopolde ! or a pro nobis, (St. Leopold pray for 
us,) and on condition that after sincere confession 
he partake of the sacrament of the Holy Eucha- 
rist, and pray to God in some public church for the 
C unity of Christian princes, the extirpation of here- 
sies and the increase of Holy Mother church.'' 

12. The most serene and eminent Arch Duke 
Cardinal Rudolphus, Archbishop of Olmutz has 
kindly taken the supreme direction of the Leopold 
Foundation, and appointed the most high and 
reverend lord prince archbishop of Vienna his lo- 
cum tenens. Vienna, 12 May, 1829, 

THE POPE'S LETTER OF APPROBATION. 

The following is the letter of approbation of 
Pope Leo XII, referred to above. 

Be it remembered, Although there are many 
things which disturb and grieve our mind in the 
most weighty discharge of our apostleship, while 



APPENDIX. 203 

we learn that some are not only opposed to the 
catholic religion, but seek to draw others also into 
error ; yet the God of all consolation does not suf- 
fer us to be without solace, but alleviates the la- 
bors, cares and anxieties which we continually 
bear. This has recently happened, and we are 
filled with the highest joy, on hearing that in the 
kingdom of our well beloved son in Christ, Fran- 
cis I. Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, 
a society has been formed called the " Leopold 
Foundation," which is designed to aid the cause 
of missions. For what is more useful to a chris- 
tian community, what is more excellent than by 
the preaching the word of God to confirm the just, 
and to lead the wandering from the paths of vice 
to those of salvation. And indeed, as the Apostle 
says, " How shall they believe on him of whom 
they have not heard? and how shall they hear 
without a preacher, and how shall they preach ex- 
cept they be sent ?" We, therefore, desiring to fa- 
vor, as far as God permits, such a society, do with 
a ready and willing mind grant the requests which 
have been made for the endowment of the same 
with some holy indulgences. Therefore, trusting 
in thel mercy of Almighty God and the authority 
of Peter and Paul, his apostles, we grant to all the 
truly penitent co-operators in this society, who 
shall confess their sins, and partake of the feast 
of the Lord's body on the day on which they shall 
be received into the society, full indulgence and 
remission of all their sins. Also, we grant full in- 



204 APPENDIX. 

dulgence to them after they shall have been cleans- 
ed from the pollutions of life by holy confession, 
and received the eucharist, on the eighth day of 
December, also on the day of the feast of St. Leo- 
pold, and once every month, provided that every 
day during the previous month they shall have 
said the Lord's prayer, the salutation of the angel, 
and the words, " St. Leopold pray for us," and in 
some public church have said pious prayers to 
1&od for the harmony of Christian princes, the ex- 
\ tirpation of heresies, and the glory of Holy Mother 
Church. These letters we endow with perpetual 
efficacy ; and we order that the same authority be 
given to the copies of them, signed by the public 
notary and sealed with the seal of the person of 
proper ecclesiastical dignity, as is given to our 
permission in this very diploma. 

Dated at Rome, at St. Peter's under the ring of 
the fisherman, on the 30th day of January, 1829, 
in the sixth year of our Pontificiate. 

T. CARD. BERNETTI. 

This apostolic letter is sanctioned by the royal 
leave. 

By his Sacred Imperial Royal Majesty 

VINCENTIUS SCHUBERT. 

Vienna, 20th April, 1829. 



First Report of the Leopold Foundation 
in the Austrian Empire, for the support 
of Catholic Missions in America. 

* # The members of the Leopold foundation 
are united to aid, by their prayers and their con- 
tributions, the messengers of God in America, in 
building churches, founding cloisters, establishing 
schools, and in providing all that is essential for 
the performance of divine worship. * * * 

We shall first give a view of what the Leopold 
foundation has done from its establishment to the 
end of October, 1830 ; then will follow accounts 
from the missions. The institution went into ope- 
ration on the 13th May, 1829. The constitution, 
and the addresses delivered on the day of its es- 
tablishment, were translated into the different lan- 
guages of our monarchy, and sent in great num- 
bers' to the various dioceses, to give publicity to 
the undertaking. In Vienna, an office was opened, 
which was given to the society free of rent by the 
Prior of the Dominicans. The result soon ap- 
peared in contributions from all quarters to the 
central treasury, exhibiting a lively proof of the 
zeal and efforts of priests and people to advance 
the kingdom of God on earth. Before giving a 
statement of the receipts and expenditures, we 
cannot withhold the letter which the pious bishop 
of Cincinnati in North America, Mr. Edward 



206 APPENDIX. 

Fenwick — (whose Vicar General, Frederic Rese y 
as is known to you all, by his visit to Vienna? 
gave occasion to the formation of our pious so- 
ciety) — wrote to his majesty, our all-gracious 
Emperor, who had patronized the Society of the 
Leopold foundation, together with the answer 
which in the name of his Majesty was given by 
his Serene Highness, the Chancellor of State, 
Prince Metternich. 

Letter of the Bishop of Cincinnati to his Majesty: 
the Emperor of Austria. 

Cincinnati, 15th January, 1830. ] 
Sire, 

May it please your Majesty to receive the most 
respectful homage of a man who is penetrated 
with feelings of gratitude for the good will and 
distinguished zeal of your imperial majesty for 
the Catholic religion. We feel ourselves irresist- 
ibly led to express to your Imperial Majesty the 
consolation derived by the assembled bishops and 
directors of missions in America, at the recent 
news, that in the states of your Imperial Majesty, 
a society has been formed for the support of Ca- 
tholic Missions in America. We have the pleasure 
also to mention the safe return of our friend and 
Vicar-General, Mr. Frederick Rese, whose apos- 
tolical labors and unwearied zeal are above all 
praise. He brings me the most gratifying ac- 
counts of the kindness with which he was receiv- 
ed and honored by pious and distinguished per- 



APPENDIX. 207 

sons in your imperial city, especially of the flat- 
tering kindness with which he was received by your 
imperial majesty, who was pleased to lend your 
protection to the pious work of supplying the 
pressing wants of our poor missions, and our new 
diocese. We venture here to flatter ourselves that 
the worthy inheritor of the virtues of St. Leopold 
and the great empress Maria Theresa, will conti- 
nue to support us in our weak endeavors to ex- 
tend the Catholic religion in this vast country, des- 
titute of all spiritual and temporal resources, es- 
pecially among the Indian tribes, who form an im- 
portant part of our diocese. We will not fail, daily 
to offer up our poor prayers to the Lord of Hosts, 
the king of heaven, that he may shed his richest 
blessings upon your Imperial Majesty, your illus- 
trious family, and your whole kingdom. Be pleas- 
ed to accept graciously this expression of the sin- 
cere gratitude and reverence with which we sub- 
scribe ourselves your Imperial Majesty's most 
grateful, most humble, and most obedient ser- 
vant, 

Edward Fenwick, 

Bishop of Cincinnati and Apostolical Administrator 
of Michigan, in the JNorth-West Territory. 

Answer of his Serene Highness, Prince Jfflet- 
, ternich, Chancellor of State of his Imperial 
JVLajesty, 

Vienna, April 27, 1830. 
Most worthy Bishop ! 
The Austrian consul-general at New- York for- 



203 APPENDIX. 

warded me the letter which your grace directed 
to the Emperor, my most illustrious master, on 
the 15th of January of this year. I did not de- 
lay to give it to his Majesty, who was highly gra- 
tified with the sentiments expressed in it, and com- 
missioned me to answer your grace. 

The Emperor, firmly devoted to our holy reli- 
gion, feels a lively joy at the account that the 
truth makes rapid progress in the vast countries 
of North America. Convinced of the irrestible 
power which the Catholic doctrine must necessa- 
rily have on simple and uncorrupted hearts and 
minds, when its truths are proclaimed by truly 
Apostolical missionaries, his Imperial Majesty 
cherishes the most favorable hopes of the pious 
progress which our holy religion will make in the 
United States and among the Indian tribes. 

The Emperor commissions me to say to your 
grace, that he cheerfully allows his people to con- 
tribute to the support of the Catholic churches in 
America, according to the plan laid down by your 
worthy vicar-general, Mr. Frederick Rese. 

While I discharge myself of the. commission 
of my illustrious master, to your grace, I feel 
happy in being his organ, and beg you to accept 
the assurance of the sentiments of respect and 
esteem, with which I remain, your grace's most 
humble and most obedient servant, 

Prince Von Metternich. 




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